Social Media Habits
I find that on average, I keep up with the news on social media multiple times per day, for multiple days of the week, but in incredibly short bursts.
My go to website for browsing social media is Reddit. Every day of the week I’m browsing that website in some form, whether it’s when I’m waking up and going to bed, or on my phone whenever I’m out, or just browsing it when I’m at home, it very much dominates most of my social media time.
In terms of news consumption, there’s specific news subreddits on reddit that are focused on the posting of news, with sections for worldwide news, American news, focused on politics, etc. I even subscribe to subreddits focused on entertainment news like movies, music, and video games. Most days of the week, I make sure to read through the front pages of these subreddits to see what current topics are trending. News posts on reddit, most of time, are links to news sites. So, I usually make sure to click on the link and at least skim through the actual article, since users on reddit can make up their own headlines when posting links.
Besides just linking to websites, users on reddit are also able to comment and have whole conversations on reddit posts. I often find myself reading through said comments to see what people think of a piece of news. However, I almost never make comments myself. Sometimes it’s because I already share an opinion with other commenters and have nothing to add, or because I feel like I’m not informed enough to really say something worthwhile.
In terms of how I’m affected by reading, I find very much that my views and opinions are affected more by the comments on a news post then by the news post itself. Especially when I’m exposed to the opinions of hundreds of other commenters that are either agreeing or arguing with each other. I do make sure to consider every point I see made, since many times my opinion on something changes when I see a point that I hadn’t considered before.
On days when I’m particularly interested in reading just the news without any comment, I forgo reddit entirely and instead look up news on google. There, I can find more focused results on news articles by location, such as Illinois specific news which is hard to find on reddit. I’m also able to search for what other news sites are saying on a specific topic that I found from one site.
In terms of why my social media news habits are the way they are, I think it’s because as a person I’m heavily inclined to listen to what other people are saying without sharing much myself. Reddit as a website really compliments me as it’s easy to just go to the comment section of any post and find hundreds, maybe even thousands of conversation threads to read through.
I know for certain that my family had no part in my news consumption habits, since news and politics are rarely topics that get brought up in conversation. Besides that, my family, parents specifically, consume news through more traditional outlets like television, and often don’t use social media to find news. My friends, on the other hand, are more likely to have influenced my media habits. They use reddit like I do, and news posts found on reddit are sometimes brought up in conversations we have.
If these habits are the best for me, I’m not quite sure. As while I find that reddit can lean towards certain biases at times, in terms of both what kind of news is posted and the types of comments that are posted. It doesn’t help that Reddit’s comments have a flawed vote system, where uses can upvote or downvote comments so that certain posts appear at the top of the page, while others are hidden away. If I keep these things in mind though, then I can feel like I’m keeping an open mind on what I read.
