I interviewed one of my close friends, who I thought would have a very different experience than me when it came to social media.  He is very social and is almost always with a lot of friends, so I figured he would be pretty active on social media, but he tends to keep things pretty private when it comes to sharing parts of his life with others.  It turned out that we are actually pretty similar in almost aspect in regard to social media.

He checks it less often than I do, but not by too much.  We both tend to check our social media when we’re bored or feel like we have nothing to do; however, he’s a lot busier than what I am, so his time that he has to check it is less than the time that I have.  He said that he definitely checks his social media multiple times everyday, but that he posts very little, if ever (he has a total of 2 Instagram posts).  Similarly, I check my social media a lot more than I actually post on it.

We also both keep our different forms of social media as private as we can.  Not only do we both set the privacy settings, but we also try to manage who we allow to follow our accounts.  He said he knows almost every person that he allows to follow all of his forms of social media, but that he does follow a few celebrities or accounts that he doesn’t know personally.  On the other hand, I don’t follow a single person that I do not know personally or have some sort of knowledge of who they are.  For the most part though, we are both very similar in our attitudes toward privacy.

Where our behaviors differ the most is when it comes to the types of social media that we use.  I solely have and use Instagram and snap chat while he uses Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and snap chat.  He said that his social media use has definitely increased as he’s gotten older; he started with just Facebook, but once high school hit, he was then into almost every form of social media so that he could keep up with friends who no longer go to school with him (our schools split in middle school).  I never really cared about social media or keeping up with people that I went to elementary school with.

I decided to interview my Godfather for this assignment. I knew that coming into the interview he didn’t really use social media in the way that I do. My Godfather, Scott, is a Technology Executive who runs a consulting firm filled with computer engineers, but immediately pointed out to me that he doesn’t have a Facebook account. Instead he relies greatly on a social media platform that I have never even heard of called “Linked In.”

Scott pointed out that he was able to use LinkedIn every day in his work in several ways. In preparing for meetings, he will often “connect” with the people he is meeting with or simply search their profiles to understand more about their background, and the background of the company that he is meeting with. He also pointed out that if there are particular skills that he is looking to recruit, he can find those online and reach out to people in the Atlanta-metro area. Scott noted that he is relatively protective of his list of connections, and only chooses to accept invitations from people with whom he has a personal relationship, but other than that was not too concerned with security. LinkedIn also allows him to join professional groups, and select favorite content that he says are “curated for his own professional interest.”

I’ve never used LinkedIn like my godfather uses it in his everyday life. I do find that I use Facebook very often. I feel like I check that the most because my friends on there come from everywhere so I like to keep in contact with them and see how they are doing on a daily basis.

A funny note to this interview is that as we were talking, his wife (Rhonda) pointed out that in fact he does have access to Facebook, and has been known to “stalk” her account at least once per week.

During the interview, I learned several differences in how I use social media and how my godfather does…

I decided to interview my mom, whose social media use is much different from my own. She has had a Facebook for about six years and an Instagram for about two weeks, which she uses as a way to post pictures from special occasions and keep up with her friends and family. I would say that I check social media about fifty times a day as a habit while my mom says that she checks her social media maybe twice a day, once in the morning and once at night.

My mom has never really been that big on social media. She has always had a Facebook, but it is very rare that she should ever post on it. She says she like to have it to see what all of her old friends are up to. I was extremely surprised about two weeks ago when I went on Instagram to see that I had a follow request from my mom. I would have never expected her to get an Instagram, but she said all of her friends are switching from Facebook to Instagram so she wanted to do the same. She said that she feels like people post too much on Facebook and that they tend to be less boastful on Instagram. I guess this shows how social medias are broadening to include different types of users. I was extremely shocked when just last week my grandmother, whose only social media is email, decided to get an Instagram.

While neither my mom or my grandmother have posted anything yet on Instagram, they say that they like to use it as a way to keep in touch with their close friends and family. While people my age tend to follow many people that they barely know, I have noticed that people my mom’s age only follow and accept follow request from a more exclusive group of people that they know very well.

First off, doing this interview was one of the most introspective experiences I’ve had. This interview made me realize that even when we think that other people have different social media preferences, we all tend to use it the same. It’s a universal concept. We all use these media in different, yet similar ways.

I interviewed a friend of mine who definitely doesn’t use social media as frequently as I use it. Personally, I’m typically on some form of social media if I’m on my phone. I don’t always use it, but I do often use it. My friend tends to use it less frequently than I do, but he definitely uses it in a similar fashion.

Some of the differences between us include how often we use it, why we use it, and which media we use. My friend reported that he accessed social media hourly, but mainly when he would hit short periods of boredom. He reported only using Instagram and Twitter, with a stronger interest in Twitter. He mainly uses it to keep up with current events. Additionally, on Twitter, he tends to retweet tweets that involve his interests, but he rarely posts unless it’s something meaningful.

Some similarities that we shared were our specific purpose for using the media, how we accessed the sites, and our views on our social media usage. We both use Instagram to keep up with friends. We both mainly use our phones to access the sites. We also don’t believe in using the privacy settings on social media because “It’s social, it’s all out there anyways.” We also believe in the need to keep work and personal separate, particularly on social media.

All in all, we definitely have differing ways that we use social media, but we also have some similarities as well. I appreciate looking at other people’s usage because it makes me not seem out of place. Sometimes I feel like my social media usage is slightly overkill, but seeing that I measure up to everyone else makes me feel normal.

I interviewed a friend two years older than me who attends a small, private college in California. I chose her to interview because I knew our social media habits were drastically different because she goes to a much smaller school than UGA and the way we socially interact with others differs as well.

I have always noticed I used social media way more than she used to; I had Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook all before she ever had the chance to download the apps. She never had a smartphone until she finally upgraded a few years ago. Though she still does not have a Facebook, she has since gotten a Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram. In the interview she confesses that she has increased her social media use, checking all of them for at least one hour a day, upwards towards four hours if it is during a less stressful time in the school year. After I came to UGA, I started using social media less than I did in high school so our habits are relatively equal now in checking social media. In high school my friend was homeschooled and had very small classes. She did not really use social media because of that and since she also did not have easy access to apps without a smartphone.

Of all the social media, I use Snapchat and Instagram the most now and check Twitter and Facebook occasionally out of pure boredom when I have run out of things to check. Unlike me, my friend uses Instagram out of boredom but checks Twitter regularly. However; we both use Snapchat as often as each other because we have a 216 day streak and we snapchat constantly.

Another difference between us is how private we are. My social media is private to a certain extent, but I will share details in the bio description whereas my friend will hide as much information from strangers as possible, keeping her posts exclusive to her friends’ feeds. She also does not post anything particularly provocative or incriminating on her social media, and I would like to think I do not either.  However, for future reference I could probably be more cautious about what I post keeping in mind future employers.

It is interesting to see how individuals use social media differently due to their surroundings and media ecology. I learned how habits differ based on what people choose to see and why they interact with certain platforms of social media.

I decided to interview my mom to see how social media use changes generationally. Keep in mind, my mom tries to stay up to date with the new social media platforms, and is often very bored at work. During the interview I compared my mom and I’s social media use and found that we are rather similar in this sense. My mom as well as I tend to check our social media throughout the day through our phones, because of the easy access it provides. The main difference between our hourly usage is that I tend to check my phone out of boredom or routine while she checks every once in a while to see what everyone is up to.

Another big difference between my mom and I, is that all of her social media platforms are on private. When it comes to my Instagram I keep it on public, because I feel I have nothing to hide. Also on Instagram I follow individuals I do not know, because they seem interesting, like models and actresses for example. My mom strictly follows her friends and coworkers accounts, making her following much slimmer.

When it comes to keeping her social media presentable, my mom has no concern about her employers seeing what she posts because she only posts things of her family or vacations. Nothing can be deemed inappropriate. With my generation there comes more concern, because we tend to not think about the repercussions of posting certain things to a platform that is so public and permanent. As time goes on, both my mom and I have progressively added new platforms of social media to our lives, but my mom tends to be a few steps behind me. This is because I will show her what is “cool and hip” and she will try to jump on the bandwagon, staying up to date with the social media world. My dad on the other hand is completely opposite, and the most outdated social media user you will ever meet.

After reading these reviews, I did the same thing I always do when people complain about the adverse effects of social media: I rolled my eyes and proceeded to scroll through Twitter.

Quite frankly, I am a strong believer that social media is only as bad as one makes it. If one allows it to be too prevalent in their life, then of course it’s going to be bad. That goes for everything in life. If one overuses chicken nuggets, then of course the world is going to say that chicken nuggets are horrible and should be regulated.

Now of course, there are those people who choose to overuse social media and said people must be addressed. However, not everyone is like this. Punishing everyone and making us all seem like social media addicts is absurd. Even so, some of these addicts see that there is a problem and proceed to try and fix it. My boyfriend only uses Snapchat and he rarely ever posts anything. Before we were dating, he had an Instagram and Twitter and his followers scaled into the thousands. He would post constantly and since he is a rather attractive male (I’m not just saying this because he’s my boyfriend, I swear), he would have fans commenting under his pictures almost ready to start a war over him. He realized that the situation was getting out of hand and decided to delete everything. He created a Snapchat, but never gave it to anyone except people that he knew personally. He could see that social media was inflating his ego and that that truly was not the way it was intended to be.

In a complex social society like college, it is easy to get wrapped up in being social, both url and irl (that is, both online and in reality). I personally have a problem with wanting to visit and stay in my friend’s dorm rooms rather than stay in my own room and study. Being social is a part of the human experience. However, it is incredibly important to remember that there is a fine line between simply being involved in the social scene and being too wrapped up in it.

I truly think it is unnecessary to put so much emphasis on how social media is negatively affecting our society. Sure, there are moments when social media should not be used (it’s probably not appropriate to Snapchat at an uncle’s funeral). However, it is a part of our society that we must embrace and learn that it’s not overriding who we are. It’s simply another characteristic of our complex society.

I’ve had a love hate relationship with social media over the years. My first introduction to social media was Facebook, like many people my age. I was somewhat late to joining Facebook because my dad wouldn’t let me, so I went behind his back and did it anyway. I was never super active on Facebook, but I would occasionally post a picture or leave a comment, which after going back and reading them I really regret. Facebook got me familiar with social media, so when I got Instagram I knew the deal. Instagram is my favorite social media “platform.” If you see me on my phone chances are I’m scrolling through Instagram.

Social media, for the most part, is helpful and useful, but it definitely causes false pretenses and “addiction” if you will. I don’t really have a problem with the first one. I don’t post often, so when I do it’s usually a picture that means something and not just a ploy for “likes” or “followers.” Of course I want people to like what I post, but I’m not the kind of person to let it dictate what I do. I do, however, suffer from social media addiction. It’s not so much that I’m posting a lot, it’s more of me just scrolling through my feed or looking on Instagram’s explore page or reading funny tweets on twitter.  I’m constantly getting in trouble for going over my data limit because I’m usually on my phone looking at social media.

I don’t think social media was created with the thoughts in mind. I think it was created to make the modern world more accessible and have a fun way to communicate with others, but overtime it has turned into something that needs to be managed. I think as long as you realize it is a virtual world and doesn’t define you or your time then it is something that can be enjoyed and used properly.