On the Edge: A millennial media user profile
“I’m not a huge social media user,” explains Sami Edge, 21. “I am honestly so paranoid about what I put out that I’m afraid to put out anything. If I have a Facebook status I’ll read it five times before I post it. Basically all I share is links. And I link like crazy.”
It’s an unnaturally warm, sunny day for early April in Eugene, Oregon, and Edge and I sit outside Allen Hall, the journalism building at University of Oregon. Tall reeds in the planter beside us slide against Edge’s billowy white shirt and the University of Oregon senior bats them away with a hand as we speak about our personal social media consumption.
Scroll through the Facebook feed of Edge, a journalism major, and her personality is revealed through shared news articles rather than the detailed status updates of some of her friends. Articles on female inventors and the Olympics break up the few pictures of the brown-haired, pixie-cut girl with a wide smile and large eyes that crinkle when she grins.
“I don’t really like to tweet,” says the Reno, Nevada native. The gold ring on her pointer finger catches the light as she touches a double-pierced ear. “I’m very verbose, so 140 characters is a pain in the ass. So mostly I share links and nothing else.”
Edge says she is friends with many journalists on Facebook, and she sees news postings frequently on the site. Edge’s favorite news source is The Washington Post. “They have an incredibly beautiful app,” says Edge. “It’s so much fun to look at, but I don’t want to pay for it.”
For Valentine’s Day she bought her boyfriend a subscription to The New York Times, and in the mornings Edge scrolls through the mobile newspaper while still in bed. She says she likes to take advantage of having access to the online newspaper since she pays for the content. However, she plans to switch their subscription to The Washington Post in the near future.
Edge says Instagram is the app she uses most often, and she averages a post a week. She enjoys looking at pictures of beautiful things, and recently she has become intrigued with the National Geographic Instagram page.
“They’ve been reposting some of their photographers and the photographers will take a picture and then write this story in probably not more than 100 words,” Edge describes. “And they’re some of the best pieces of writing that I’ve ever read. I think it’s incredible. I’d love to do that.”
Edge looks at Instagram twice a day and enjoys the app because users don’t typically post pictures more than once a day. “The people who use it regularly, you see their stuff once a day and you get to see what they’re doing. It’s easy to make it to where you were last. You don’t get bombarded by so much content that you can’t feel like you got all the way through.”
Edge says most of her web browsing is on her phone. Only when doing research or when writing a paper does she turn to her laptop, since it’s easier to type. She will take the first fifteen minutes before getting out of bed in the morning to check the notifications on her phone and see the daily news.
Movies and television shows are a social experience for Edge. She says she only watches television with other people and cannot remember the last time she sat and watched something by herself. “I don’t like anything that’s too long because it’s too much of a commitment,” she says.
Edge is also an avid music listener. “I’m on Spotify whenever I’m not in class or walking somewhere,” she says.
Edge no longer has Spotify Premium since she ended her subscription when she became tired of paying for it. That hasn’t deterred her frequent listening.
“I don’t like working in silence,” she explains. “And I live alone and I don’t like being in silence. I’ve thought about it a lot recently because if I’m sitting around reading or something with my boyfriend, I’ll turn on Spotify. Or I’ll be making breakfast and he’s in the other room, even then, –even with another person there –I’d rather have music in the background.”
Edge uses social media as a way to connect and as an escape. “I’ll get tired of what I’m doing and go to social media.” The reeds brush her shirt and she swats them away. “I never stay on social media for long. I think I have a short attention span or I have too much shit to do. So five minutes on social is too many minutes on social.”
