The internet is always in my hands. From the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep, I am always checking my phone and interacting with my friends. I have found that every day of this past week I have woken up in the middle of the night just to remove my earphones which stayed in while I fell asleep watching Youtube. I am always online.
Daily my phone’s alarm wakes me up, and puts the phone in my hand from before I have even opened my eyes. I open my eyes to see a list of Facebook, Snapchat, and Youtube notifications. I usually fall into Youtube first as it takes less effort to watch a video while you are half asleep, then to have to read about my friend’s previous night. I move on with my day and play some music off of Youtube just to get me going. While I shower, and then I too like those many others in the survey start checking my newsfeed while sitting on the toilet. I next move on to some more educational social media as I usually listen to the next “recommended” TedTalk that makes it into my bubble. While munching down on my cereal, I think deeply about the thoughts of the world that are explored by the Ted speakers.
Driving is usually the only time of the day that I am not looking at my phone or texting people because, as we have all seen the humorous messages from the Illinois Highway organisation, “Phone in one hand, ticket in the other,” I do not want to get a ticket or more importantly put other people in danger. I do although usually listen to music off of youtube occasionally as I drive to school. Other than music, driving is where most of my phone related social media gets put on hold. This is not to say that I am not reached by any form of media. I always am listening to the radio. I love country music and listen to 95.5 religiously every morning. This not only gives me nice tunes to jam out to, but they do also talk about: news, current events, and the personal beliefs of the radio hosts. This in fact was how I received my first notice of what had happened in Las Vegas on Sunday night, as the radio host read out a written twitter post from the country singer’s page.
When I finally reach school, I do not usually look through Google to find articles about the previous night’s events, although that was the case on Monday morning, as I read through CNN’s webpage trying to inform myself on the details of Sunday’s attack. I rarely seek out to find out about specific news like this unless it is something as big and impactful as this event was on thousands of people. Although I do find myself occasionally swiping through garbage snapchat news about weather or not I am a good kisser, or something random like that. Although I know that the global news is much more important, I just find it much easier to swipe through meaningless things than to actually read a legitimate article from a credible news organization.
Now for the rest of the day as I make my way through the day, social media works as a filler for when I do not have anything to do. I find myself checking my snapchat as I walk between destinations in the halls, I look through my facebook feed while sitting distractedly in class. I use social media to save me from the nightmare of nothingness. When I do not have anything to do, the least I can do is scroll up and down my newsfeed checking who has an upcoming birthday, or something of the sort. I only use it casually whenever I get the chance, never getting too sucked into world of social media.
Although I am always on social media, I would not consider myself a hardcore social media user per say. I do use it all day everyday, but I would say that I arguably use it much less than many people. Within this week, I have only been in one post, posted by a friend talking about an outing that we had with some friends. I do not post about every meal I have, although I do sometimes post about my self prepared vegan meals. I am not an annoying poster who suffers fom ‘most post’ deficiency, I am an average social media user. I rarely if ever post on anything other than Snapchat, Facebook, and Youtube . These three seem to be my favorites.
I have found that I am a pretty well rounded social media user. Out of all of the possible actions one can do on social media, I do all of them at a similar rate. I am talking about viewing, posting, commenting, and sharing. Although viewing is probably the greatest of the four actions that I take part in, I still do the others a fair amount. I do watch Youtube videos, view Snapchat stories, and read Facebook posts for the majority of my time on social media, but I also like to comment on Youtube videos, share Facebook posts, and reply to Snapchat stories. I do not only go trolling on everything I see without ever posting anything of my own, and I am also not like those people who have no personal posts on their page, just a stream of shared posts and articles. I think that it is important to be a “well rounded” social media user, to maximize what you get out of it. This way you can: learn, teach, inquire, and share new ideas with the world, which is what social media was meant to do!
In the end, after looking back at this week, I cannot imagine a week without social media. It is such a vital part of my life that it has almost become second hand nature to check my phone to see what is going on around the world. I do not think this is a bad thing as long as you do not over use social media to where it stops you from interacting with people in real life, and as long as you are a well rounded social media user that uses all aspects of social media to actually learn and get something good out out of it. I believe that I am safe and that if I continue this way, social media will be a tool for me and will not become a burden or hindrance on my person to person social life.
