How Do I Live My Life In A More Rich Way?
My current position with social media from how much I use it and what I am using it for - a breakdown per platform.
I use social media for a variety of reasons - news, entertainment, school, creative purposes, and communication. Not in any specific order. I have only just started tracking my screen time, so I do not have hard data to back up my time on each app. But I am approaching this honestly by stating that I know I am on my phone for a high majority of the day. It has become a very integrated part of my life in nearly every activity I do. When diving into these applications and sites there will be positive and negatives on each side that are covered.
Twitter: We will start with Twitter. I downloaded Twitter in 2009 and have been active on it nearly everyday since. At my count that is 4,421 days - I've seen a lot of trends, breaking stories, and movements rise from the ground up on this application. Staying up to date with current events geopolitically, following my interests in music/lifestyle, and a medium to share my photography work on. I have always enjoyed Twitter from the standpoint of its natural conversation flow format with your followers - character limited, fun, conversation. In most cases, especially early on, the person you tweet is the real person you’d expect to be tweeting. I remember being in middle school and thinking how fun, natural, and harmless this felt compared to then popular, Myspace. I never have been caught up in the likes or retweets that a post receives, but do find it rewarding when engagement is had with something I post.
Twitter today - clearly a different animal. Like other apps, it has been through the ringer with misuse of the algorithm to spread information that benefits the malicious causes of political movements, business, or national government. Twitter, in my eyes, has been easier to approach in tweaking how your newsfeed is delivered to you in comparison to a site like Facebook. This also plays in hand with how I believe the majority of people follow users on Twitter. My peers who use the site have always been more reserved with their “follow” than they would be with “Add Friend” on Facebook. To tell you why this is would be a shot in the dark, but nevertheless is something I have noticed from users on Twitter.
Facebook: More personal use. Used equally as much as others, but I have less engagement on this platform. I find it the most useful to stay in touch with my family and extended family via Messenger. This app’s usage of groups and pages I believe is top of it’s class. Staying connected with high school alumni, friends met while traveling, etc. Facebook just has the ease of being able to have a wide sweeping hold of social profiles. It is second nature now to believe that someone is using a Facebook account.
I find it to be the most overwhelming of any social media platform with the amount of disinformation irresponsibly shared from strangers and family. This is a trend that will be with every app that is touched on in this post, but Facebook seems to be at the top of the podium for this issue, all from a sheer numbers standpoint. If asked to list apps that frighten me the most from a perspective of the masses using them - Facebook wins by a mile.
Instagram: An old favorite that has had a slow burn effect on my liking towards it. I remember my obsession over this platform for its main communication effort being photo focused. The concept caught my attention as an aspiring photographer. I wanted to share all my work here and generate the likes, followers, and attention. Instagram had me by the throat as a teenager. Remembering the annoyance or inadequate feeling inside when my photo that I worked so hard on didn't generate the likes I believed it should. It’s embarrassing to admit, but it was the truth. Interaction on Instagram mattered to me, and I vividly remember the intent of each post to boost my self esteem as a person and as an artist.
It still has its usefulness to me with its story functions and sharing methods, but it feels like it becomes more and more saturated as a platform as each year goes by. I still believe it is a comparative and potentially useful tool to be using in the field of study we will explore throughout this semester. I overall would say that I use it the most in the lens of photography and still believe that it is a good home for photographers. Just like anything, sifting through the nonsense that it posted can be exhausting is all.
A few things to note that I believe Instagram has performed well on in recent years: The introduction of Instagram stories made me delete Snapchat. This was clearly the plan of the company to go head to head with their competitor - and it worked. I was only on Snapchat because everyone else was on Snapchat - I never found it useful in creating a name for my work or as an effective form of communication with my peers.
YouTube: Forever a classic to me. I love, love, love, this platform. Just like anything humans get their hands on to - it was exploited and used for selfish gains. The optimist in me wants to believe that the YouTube celebrity has inspired young people to not feel so overwhelmed by the world, and to know that anyone with an iPhone has a voice and YouTube is there to be that outlet. Again, this of course comes with its downfalls. The algorithm spreads videos that insight fear and polarization throughout an entire world. Sitting through lies and truths and being mindful of what you retain while on the site can seem tedious. But I believe overall that YouTube has done more good than harm. It completely changed the course of the entertainment industry and how people obtain content. With YouTube in the mix we have seen cable and TV companies have to pivot their objectives to perform along side the site.
I believe that of course when this platform was introduced - the majority of us in our early 20’s being in Intermediate/Middle school had us comparing ourselves to these personalities - adding to insecurities. But to flip that script I believe that there was, and still is, plenty of positivity spreading, advice, and avenues for viewers, friends, and yourself to find useful information.
In terms of inspiring me to change things about my life and to pursue things that I was shaky about: YouTube supplied the platform for me to make these changes in my life.
Deactivated, but not Forgotten: Snapchat, Vine, Tumblr, Myspace:
While all have been deactivated at this point. They all served a purpose for me at one point in my childhood and teen years. The lifespan of these apps on my devices ranged anywhere from 1.5 - 2.5 years with heavy usage. Out of these I saw Snapchat being the most addictive and damaging to me personally. I still examine people I am around who use it and how unknowingly attached they are to it.
So How Do I View Social Media As A Whole Right Now?
Getting to the main topic here. I find myself to be a bit more “half glass full” kind of fellow. But, I am always cautiously optimistic about everything - it’s just how I am wired. Talking about this tool that I grew up with like it is a monster or an antagonist seems silly, and a little uneasy. I would hope that folks like Tristan Harris and the folks at the Center for Humane Technology would continue to spread awareness enough to where Big Tech would take the hit for humanity and stop the spread of this. Enough to where you and I would make conscious decisions on how to appropriately move forward with this much power in the palm of our hands. It looks ugly from my eyes, and the road looks long. I believe that it will be the forefront of what my generation will be fighting legislatively, no doubt.
But from my 14+ years of personal use of social media, I see it as a tool for good. The pros have outweighed the cons in my usage. It has helped inspire me to make very meaningful changes in my life that I would have not been so open to without. The ease that people are able to reach you with the exact message you need to hear and you need to receive is a powerful ability. I, and so many others, had this tool as confused teenagers for when we might have been feeling down that allowed us to just search the way we were feeling. On the other side of that YouTube search or tweet was someone that is or had experienced those feelings, and an open source to how they navigate that experience was free to retain.
Maybe I would have not been so easily persuaded to turn my physical lifestyle around and start running without logging on to YouTube to see my subscriptions out hitting the pavement running everyday. Maybe I would have not been able to turn around my negative outlook on how I was going about my life socially if I didn’t have the voice of someone else on my Twitter feed suggesting tips on how to view yourself. Maybe I would have dropped the hobby that I love most just because I was running into a line of creative blocks and felt like there was no way out of it - social media gave me tips on how to navigate that.
So yes, I believe it’s good. I believe that it will continue to change the world in ways we cannot even imagine. Some will be very bad. Some will be so transformative that it will move generations unknowingly into the right direction.
Concluding Thoughts:
I am seeing this direction I am going in school as useful, yes. But I am also understanding more and more in regards to social media marketing that I do not know if it is really in my heart of hearts to be used as a pawn in a big marketing scheme to get people to helplessly click on things so that someone I do not know cashes in on. The approach to how we market ourselves is becoming my favorite part of my time at UAB. Taking the time to break down the behavioral manners that we are subconsciously doing and that companies are doing to us while we use these devices is intriguing. These are the devices that will allow us to have jobs in the future. Understanding what we are going to be marketing and what we will subconsciously be doing to people as we push our brands.
How do I live my life in a more rich way as it pertains to our usage of social media? Finding what works for each individual user. There is no perfect solution to this problem, and I believe that one could argue that it is more case by case than any problems facing society as a whole right now. Each person’s reasoning on why they are using social media varies heavily, so no one solution will fix what has happened to the masses. The only clear answer is that social media needs to be used as a tool for communication and innovation that will push society towards a greater good. Alongside of raising awareness of what the tool that we are using is doing to us as a society. The solution on how everyone gets on that same page will prove to be the most challenging.