I originally chose this FYOS because it was one of the few that I was interested in, and that fit in with my schedule. I am glad that I took this class because it allowed me to take a closer look at my personal media use, and media use throughout the world. Moving forward, my media habits will probably remain the same, but now I will be more aware about how my postings affect my personal brand. I am most appreciative for the social media audit because I definitely had some posts that I do not want the professional world to see from when I was younger. With a major like marketing, I plan to encounter media in my career frequently, and I’m glad that I took this class to get a jumpstart on understanding how it affects everyone around me.

I am currently at UGA studying to be in the business school as a marketing major. Media is extremely important in marketing, and basically what marketing is. The goal is to market your product or business and make it appealing to your audience. Companies will use Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook to get their names out in the world attract their customers, and it’s anything but easy.

According to http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/11/the-top-10-benefits-of-social-media-marketing/#34ae34082a4d, social media marketing is important for increasing brand recognition, improving brand loyalty, higher conversion rates, higher brand authority, better search engine rankings, richer customer experiences, and improved customer insights.  All of these things can only help market your brand and are why social media marketing is so important today. It ultimately leads to more customers which means more money for your business. According to Hubspot, in 2014, 92% of marketers reported that social media marketing was instrumental for their business, and 80% of these marketers indicated their efforts increased traffic to their websites.

Moving forward with my major, I am going to have to learn the best media sites to market different brands, and how to reach out to my specific audience in order to be successful.

After logging my media use last week, I decided to log my use another day, to see if anything has changed. I chose to do this experiment on Thursday because I didn’t have a test on Friday, and had a date night that night.

I began to notice that I still use media as frequently as I did before. I had two 75 minute classes back to back on Thursday, and I found myself scrolling through my media when the lecture got boring, or shifting to a different website while taking notes on my laptop. When I was done with class I decided to do other things to distract myself from using media. I took a nap, and also went to an hour workout class where phones are not even allowed in the room. These were both nice breaks from using media, and I felt better as if I had been on a “media cleanse” for those couple of hours. It is difficult to stay loyal to this cleanse however, because I feel as if my phone is constantly going off because of groupme’s, or I’m constantly using it to listen to Spotify in the car or when I’m studying. I also still feel the constant urge to scroll through instagram or check snapchat, basically all the time. It’s become almost an addiction that I feel is very difficult to break, especially when I am trying to do other things, or have nothing to do at all.

All in all, this experiment has made me realize that I am dependent on my media, and while it will be difficult to limit myself on a daily basis, I will continue to try and take hour breaks to do other things, and distract me from all of the technology around me.

I logged my social media use on Thursday and on Saturday last week, and was honestly not that surprised by the results. I know that I use media  a lot, definitely too much. What I noticed on Thursday in my 75 minute classes, is that I could hardly focus for more than 15 minutes without checking my phone. I also noticed when I was trying to study that I had to take numerous “phone breaks”. I often think about how much better I would be doing in my classes if I didn’t constantly check my phone. Even after class on Thursday the first thing I do is get on my phone. For me is something idle to do as I’m walking around campus by myself, or sitting in my dorm room. I had a social on Thursday night, and even then I was on my phone snapchatting with my friends.

Saturday I had a different schedule, but still used my media a lot. I went to breakfast with my friends and on a long walk, so I didn’t use my phone as much as I usually would during that time. I also spent a lot of time on Netflix, and online shopping. I was not surprised by how much I saw myself on my phone or using other medias, but it still concerns me to see it written down on paper. I definitely think that in this generation the go to thing to do in your down time or any time is to get on your phone and check your media, even if you’ve already checking it 5 times in the last 5 minutes. It’s turned into a bad habit for most, including for me.

I have googled myself before, but the last time I remember doing it was probably in middle school. During that time in my life, pre social media, the only articles or pictures that came up were my school website, or the picture of myself receiving the penmanship award that appeared in the paper. Now when I google myself, the first thing that comes up is my facebook page. I personally do not post pictures on facebook. I did not post in middle school and I do not post now, so I am not worried about any embarrassing posts from my past. However, my friends post on facebook and tag me in pictures all of the time. These articles made me more aware of the photos that I am tagged in online. I then went through and deleted some of the pictures I am tagged in that might come of as inappropriate, or embarrassing. My instagram page also came up, but my account setting are private, so the only pictures that I came across when I googled my instagram were pictures from my friends whose accounts are public. This made me realize how important the privacy settings are on different social media accounts. A lot of the accounts that I don’t use that often are also private, so they were difficult to find in the google search as well.

I think it is very important to audit your social media every once in a while. Sometimes we forget that our online brand isn’t all about updating  our followers on partying or how much fun we are having in college, it’s about making a name for yourself in the online community and the work force.

This article really brought to light how much I am on my cellphone and checking my social media. I think the reference to social media being like junk is very accurate, because the more we use social media and our phones, the more addicted we become. I have never thought of apps being modified to make them more addictive to their users, but after reading this article it is clear that I have played into their tactics. I definitely am addicted to snapchat, and I think the modification that made it that made it even more addictive than it already was is the creation of the “story”. With this new invention, snapchat users could see what their friends were doing all the time, making users, especially me, constantly refresh their stories to see if something new was going on in their friends lives, or more importantly if they were missing out on something. I have a friend who deleted her snapchat because she said it made her anxious and constantly have “fomo” when she saw other people’s stories or snapchats. She told how much better it felt to not have the responsibility of a snapchat, and how she could be more in the moment because she wasn’t constantly checking her phone.

I personally think that I check my phone a little too much throughout the day, but it has become such a habit that I would never download a software that modifies my usage. I think that social media and apps are continuing to become more addictive, and that at this point, no one is willing to give up any time spent on their smartphones.

I decided to interview my mom about the way she uses social media because I know that our uses are much different. She has had a facebook for years to keep up with her friends, but she hardly ever posts. Now that me and my brother are in college, her main use of facebook is to scroll through her timeline looking for pictures that we are tagged in and saving them to her camera roll. My brother and I always get mad at her because she will “like” every picture we are tagged in even when its been posted by one of our friends that she doesn’t even know.

Her new source of social media is Instagram. She said that she joined instagram because all of her friends have it, and all of me and my brother’s friends have it, and she wants to keep up with everyone. The only times she will post is when I pick out the picture, the edit, and the caption and post it for her. My mom says she has no idea how to operate the app and leaves up to me to post, because she wants her friends and family to see what she is up to. She is still the classic mom that tries to “zoom in” when I show her a picture on instagram, even though I tell her every time that that isn’t possible.

Social media is very different for different ages. For example, my mom says she will check her social media once or maybe twice a day, usually before she goes to bed, as opposed to me, who checks my social media probably 100 times a day.

Social media has become a very prevalent part of my life and everyone’s lives around me. I remember I was always late joining the social medias that my friends were in middle school. I was probably the last one of my friends to get facebook, but that was only seventh grade. However, to this day, I have never posted a status or even downloaded a picture, letting the pictures on my feed be from picture my friends have uploaded and tagged me in. I also have an instagram, but my friends always make fun of me because I rarely post. It is always a big deal whenever I post a picture and is often a picture that I have edited a million different ways with a caption that I have meticulously thought of. I am a naturally shy and reserved person, so for me, I am a little hesitant putting myself all over social media. I like to scroll through my feeds and see what other people are doing, but don’t enjoy having everyone know exactly what I am doing. Part of this mindset is probably about privacy. I have a lot of “friends” on facebook and “followers” on instagram, but in real life I don’t actually know them that well and am not sure if I want them knowing everything about my life on social media. Social media is so second nature in society meaning everyone is on it. This makes it feel okay to gossip or judge people based on what they post online without even knowing the person. I think social media does keep us connected, but in a way, it also disconnects us because we judge others on the amount of likes they get or how many followers they have, instead of on who they are as a person.

I believe that the media ecology at my high school was pretty similar to the media ecology here at UGA. In high school, our primary media that we would use was “spartan net” and website almost identical to UGA’s elc. On spartan net, we had all of our classes listed and our teacher would post assignments, power points, or announcements just like the elc. However, this website was a somewhat new media ecology for my high school, as it only started my junior year of high school. It is odd to think about what we used before the invention of spartan net, because it is so convenient to have all of your classes and assignments on one website. This is also why I am so grateful to have the elc at UGA, because it makes everything easier when you are trying to study for a test or checking your grades.

Another similar media ecology between my high school and UGA is email. As I talked about in my last blog, email is the primary source of communication between students and professors. It is also a way for professors to get in touch with their students quickly if they have a short announcement or need to cancel class etc. All in all, I think that technology is evolving, and school systems are constantly changing their media ecologies as new medias are created. The media ecology of my school ten years was completely different than how  it is now, just like the media ecology of UGA is going to be completely different in ten years as well.

Email is definitely the easiest way for students to communicate with their professors and vice versa. Email may be a “legacy media” when it comes to communicating with family and friends, but with professors, it is probably the most efficient and professional way to get in touch with each other. I went to a very small high school where I had personal relationships with all of my teachers, and would often times send rather informal emails when I had questions for them. After reading about proper email etiquette, I realized that I could never email my professors at UGA the way I emailed my teachers in high school! Now that I am in so many large classes with three hundred people in each one, my professors have no idea who I am and that is something that I’m not used to. I have not had to email one of them yet, and am thankful that I have this article to refer to from now on. Now that I am in college and school is much more serious, I think it is very important to be respectful and professional when emailing a professor, and show them that you are serious about their class. One thing that I noticed on the second article making fun of students emailing their professors unprofessionally, is that text “slang” was being used such as writing “u” instead of you, or  “ur” instead of your. Many students email in this way because our generation is so used to texting and shortening words, that it even appears in their emails. However, most students think this is okay because they have never been told what is proper email etiquette. I am grateful for this article, because now I no longer have to worry about my emails being too informal or too formal. It is definitely a format that I will use in the future!