After jumping around from major to major these past four months, I’ve realized that I have no idea what my major should be. So I’m currently resting with an undecided-business major. However, I do know where I see myself going in life. I’d like to work my way up in the music industry – whether it be in management or relations. One of my dream jobs would be to work for Billboard Headquarters in New York, either writing articles or managing the several social media accounts that they run.

Social media has drastically changed the music industry. Companies like Billboard use their platform to constantly and almost instantly keep their audience up to date on all of the latest news. They post several times a day and these postings range from album debuts, song ratings, and celebrity news. This type of platform keeps me knowledgable on almost everything music related. It keeps me informed on what is going on in the industry. It’s much more than just pop-culture.

Without social media, the music industry would not be where it is today. When artists broadcast their latest music on social media, it creates greater sales. If artists were to not post about their upcoming music, it would be less talked about and result in fewer sales. Social media has helped create the music industry that we know and love today.

CITE: https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/08/social-mobile-changed-music/

Although I don’t know exactly what I want to major in, I am really interested in Political Science. I’ve always had a love for politics, and at this point in time, I have been able to gain information about politics easier than ever thanks to different media sources. There are many different forms of media when it comes to politics, including newspapers, television, magazines and social media. People are now able to learn about politics using so many different forms of media that pretty much everyone with access to these forms of media has more political knowledge than before. One problem with political media is the biased information that comes from them, which leads to inaccuracies and in some cases mild forms of brainwashing. It is impossible to turn on the TV and watch a news station that is not biased, and because of that people tend to view stations that reinforce their views, which further closes people’s opinions to the other side, or people get frustrated and stop watching the news altogether.This problem also occurs in social media because of the algorithms that different forms of social media companies use. If someone is conservative, their Newsfeed on Facebook is going to be full of conservative opinions, news stations, and advertisements, because of algorithms, but also because of the power of the person with the account to follow or unfollow certain people depending on their views. Even though there are many negative things about political media, there are also many positive things that come out of it, for example educating Americans on what is going on in our country and other countries. If Americans are more educated about politics, they will feel more inclined to vote and taking advantage of our Democratic system.

I’m looking toward a future in the medical field as a doctor. I feel like with Healthcare, there are so many ways that Social Media can be used in order to benefit patients and the general population in terms of informing people about solutions and potential cautions to keep in mind in different situations. A potential issue with this is that sometimes there are fake links and articles that are created that contain false information which could misguide patients in their decision-making for their health.

However, there is some possible positive outcome from the online discussion on forums and social media sites in that patients with serious issues are able to find others who are going through similar situations. It creates a safe space where people can talk about their experiences and get advice. I think that this is definitely a plus when it comes to the connectivity of social media.

Social media usage by healthcare professionals has been at times harmed them in that in some situation when they post about their experiences online they have lost their jobs due to patient confidentiality and other ethical issues. An NIH article explained situations in which ER personnel’s online posts and Medical students’ cadaver pictures have lost their jobs (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3863578/).

Another really big part of the Medical field in terms of the spread of knowledge are Medical Journals. Some of the most influential journals are the New England Journal of Medicine whose impact factor is 59.558, the Lancet whose impact factor is 44.002 and the Nature Biotechnology whose impact factor is 42.113 as reported by the NIH (https://tools.niehs.nih.gov/srp/publications/highimpactjournals.cfm). The impact factor is how often a journal is quoted in a year. These journals contain a lot of information about new technology and potential cures and treatments to different conditions.

As a Human Development and Family Sciences major, wanting to pursue a career in Nursing, I haven’t ever thought about how nurses use media. When researching, I found two websites, http://everynurse.org/nurses-using-social-media/, and https://www.ncsbn.org/Social_Media.pdf, that outline how nurses should and should not be using media in their career field.

Nurses can utilize social media by promoting the profession to educate the public. Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Discussion Groups and RSS Feeds are all social media outlets that allow nurses to educate the public on their profession. Blogging is a way for nurses to become experts on their career by reading input from other bloggers in their career field and expressing their own feelings on their profession. Twitter and Facebook are quick and easy ways for maintaining communication with people. For example, if someone has an emergency question a nurse can quickly respond to help the person in need or if someone has a question about some medicine a nurse can quickly respond. YouTube is a way for the public to better understand the healthcare and their medical needs. Discussion Groups and RSS Feeds are a way for nurses to connect with other nurses to provide support and encouragement to other healthcare professionals. I didn’t realize before that nurses use these social media devices to help educate the public in their career field.

Nurses must be extremely careful when using social media to not violate the laws regarding patient confidentiality and privacy. The website, https://www.ncsbn.org/Social_Media.pdf, briefly explains patient confidentiality and privacy and the consequences when violating the laws. Nurses should only be sharing patient information with the patient and their family and with other health care professions. Nurses shouldn’t use social media to complain about or comment on the health of patients, post photos of patients, rant about place of employment, blow off work related steam or use offensive language. When a nurse complains about a patient that could damage their own character. If a nurse were to complain about their place of employment that would give their place of employment a bad reputation. When using social media, you should always maintain professionalism. Inappropriate use of media can cause the nurse to face disciplinary action by BON (Board of Nursing), which can include reprimand or sanction, fines, or temporary or permanent loss of licensure. Some uses of media can violate the state and federal laws of patient confidentiality and privacy. A way to prevent any nurse from any of the previous consequences would be to not post about a patient on social media or about their place of employment.

Nurses use social media every day to improve their knowledge in their career field and to help educate the public. They must be extremely careful in their profession because violating one law through social media can cause your whole career to be gone. Nursing is a field that uses social media to encourage and support colleagues, and help and educate the public.

Some links:

• The bubble quiz we took
• Rural America as its own bubble
• Red feed/Blue feed: interactive exercise in how Facebook responds to what it thinks are your politics (Wall Street Journal online)
• Fake news on Facebook
• Has a group of college students just solved the fake news problem?

 Well, I suppose I’m not that against media. I’m really just busy. After doing a third day and comparing all three days, I realized that I don’t hate media or I’m an old lady, I’m just really busy. Almost too busy to use media. The red line on the graph (since the key disappeared) is Friday. My media usage isn’t too shabby. I’m using it for a little bit. I also tend to wind down at night by scrolling through Twitter. The green line represents Saturday when I didn’t do anything except go out with friends that evening. Once I woke up, since I wasn’t busy, I was able to be on media. The very sad blue line represents Tuesday, a day when I have class and work. Even when I get off work, I’m so busy that I don’t even have time to properly wind down with social media. Honestly, social media just does not fit into my very busy schedule. I seem to always be doing something related to school that I don’t have the time for anything else to distract me.

With that being said, when I do allow myself to not doing anything and focus on social media, I am able to thoroughly enjoy reading what everyone else in the world is saying about everything (particularly the current events in politics). These comments that I see make me feel more human and not so busy and demanding. It reminds me that it’s alright and that I’m going to be alright.

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 chose to do another day of the week where I monitored my media. I chose to do it on a Wednesday because I’m done with class at 11:00. I conducted it the same way I did before, but this time I was more aware of the facts that I was monitoring my media usage. The major thing I noticed was that my Netflix time went down A LOT, but my school related media went up a lot. This was due to the fact that I had a psych test, a math test, a basic skills test, and an essay due the next day, so I was basically holed-up in my dorm and studied. I still watched some Netflix, but it was mostly during meal times (the only breaks from studying I took that day) and before I went to bed. The school related media I used was mostly email, word, various school websites, and my online textbooks. I had like 12 tabs open on my computer at one time. My time spent on Instagram and Snapchat didn’t change much. I still did little, periodical checks during my studying. Because I did have so much due the next day, it made me wish I had picked a different day because that’s not how my normal day goes, but it was interesting to see how much media I used when I did have a lot going on.