The most interesting aspect of these articles was the recommendation to Google your name and see what comes up. First, I googled just my first and last name and nothing that was actually related to me showed up; just an actress named Logan White and some athletes that also had my name. So, I decided to Google my social media user name and was surprised to see a lot of random photos pop up. Only one was from my personal social media, and the rest were photos from some of my friends (most of which I wasn’t even tagged in). These pictures ranged from my little sister’s volleyball picture to photos from my high school newspaper staff. This really opened my eyes to how even your friend’s social media accounts can affect your presence online.

These articles also made me realize how important it is to have the same, or similar, user names for your social media accounts so you can be easily found online, either by your peers or by potential employers. I also need to create a Google+ and a LinkedIn account to increase networking and employer contacts. I need to make better use of social media as a way to make business connections.

Overall, I’ve always been pretty careful with what I post online. I don’t think there is a pressing need to delete anything, but this may be because I didn’t have any forms of social media when I was younger. So, thankfully I don’t have any old, embarrassing Facebook photos or statuses that I could have forgotten about. Because I got started with social media at a relatively older age, maybe around sophomore year of high school, I have been somewhat mindful of what I post.

These articles emphasized how important it is to regulate the image you portray online and how easy it is for others to find what you post. I will continue to be careful with social media and use it in a way that I won’t have to regret later on.

I decided to interview my little sister, who is a sophomore in high school. I’ve noticed that my social media habits have changed a lot from high school to college, and I wanted to see how lowerclassmen use social media.

The main similarity between my sister’s social media age and mine is that we both have a habit of scrolling through our phones somewhat hourly. We also tend to post the same things: whenever we do something fun with friends, it’s someone’s birthday, etc. And, we both use social media primarily to keep in touch with people. Both of us also have our accounts set on private, and have met most of our followers, they have mutual friends, or they go to the same school as we do.

However, she checks her phone and scrolls more much more frequently than me. I think that this may be because our high school is relatively lenient on their phone policies, and my classes have gotten much harder and more  demanding, leaving me less time for social media. But I post more frequently than her, as she said she posts about once every two weeks.

We also use some different forms of social media. My sister has never had a Facebook account, and probably never will, while Facebook was my very first social media account. Almost none of her friends have Facebook accounts, because their generation came along a little after Facebook’s time. She also said that she and some of her friends still use Vine sometimes, which I actually deleted off of my phone a while ago. Oovoo is another social media platform that she mentioned (and I had no idea what it was). Apparently, it’s a video chatting app.

Lastly, my little sister uses Snapchat much more frequently than me. She said that Snapchat was her most used form of social media, while I simply keep up my streaks. Snapchat actually stresses me out sometimes, but my sister loves it.

The issue that has always bothered me most about social media, as mentioned in the “Terms and Conditions” article, is the aspect of putting up a front on social media;  trying too hard to show other people how many friends you have and how much fun you’re having. I’ve never been a social media addict, but I’m guilty of this too at times. It feels like a trap my generation is inevitably stuck in (especially girls). I’ve heard people say so many things that reveal a lot of negative aspects of our society.  For example, “I already have a caption for tonight,” before even arriving to whatever event it may be. The pressure of putting up a front on social media is a serious problem that a lot of people don’t even recognize.

Then there’s the comparison game, when girls see other posts and wonder whether or not they’re as good as the other person, if they don’t have enough friends, if they don’t go to enough parties, or why they don’t get as many likes. In a way, this may have gotten even worse in college. People are trying to seem like they’re having the time of their lives, and are more concerned with photos and social media than actually having the time of their lives. I think this stems from the dependence our generation has on what other people think of us, myself included.

Personally, Instagram was my biggest problem, but I think I’m doing a lot better with managing social media time. In high school, I was concerned with  how my social life compared with other people’s sometimes. Now, college has me way busier, to the point where I often don’t have time to check social media. So far, college has been a great experience where I’ve been having fun in the moment wherever I am instead of focusing on social media.

First of all, these books both are very intriguing to me in the way that they sum up to transgression of social media. The reviewers respectably respond to talking points in the books with their own judgements and connections which adds to the overall theme that Social Media is beginning to shape not only our own lives, but the entire worlds. I personally have witnessed so much that is talked about in these books ranging from family members posting baby pictures of me 18 years later to scrolling through reddit reading about political social media and wikileaks. Just before I began college here my mom posted some sappy thing on Facebook with pictures of me as a baby and moving into my dorm, all with the intent of personal gratification and a mechanism for coping with change. Obviously I don’t blame my mom and am not bothered by this in the slightest, but this occurs so often in the social media realm where people post with the goal of emotionally attracting others to make them feel better about themselves. This is why like counts exist; my own theory is that if likes and follower totals did not exist, then social media would be a dead trend. Everyone is looking for self approval whether or not they believe it. This crosses into my next point in that people are constantly fantasizing about social recognition. I mean that by how people, young people in particular(such as myself sadly) always are planning on a good photo opportunity or caption while at a social event or destination. This is the first instinct of the millennial class. It is now more important to show other people how much fun you are having at a party or how good you look at the beach. It has even turned into a viscious cycle, in that people no longer judge themselves or others based upon genuine experiences and stories, but rather through like counts and post recognition.  This to me signals that social media is no longer just a method of mass communication, but a form of lifestyle direction. Social Media is alive and growing, and in time all people will realize this. This is what I interpreted from the articles as well as personal experiences.

Media Ecology is defined as the study of the types of media used in a certain environment. Surprisingly, I think that the media ecology of UGA, in my experience so far, is less diverse in the classroom than that of my high school. In high school we used interactive forms of learning through games like Kahoot, class Quizlet groups, and class discussion posts in which we had to answer a critical thinking question online and respond to our peer’s answers.

At UGA, I actually have a class where the Professor does not allow the use of our laptops in class. She prefers the “old-fashioned” method of taking notes with a pencil and paper over the use of technology. In my classes, we haven’t really used many forms of technology (aside from this FYOS class). All my professors have used are PowerPoints for lectures. Some of my friends do use WebAssign, a tool that we also used at my high school, but that’s pretty much it. My math class is my only course that requires the use of ELC, a platform that is very similar to itsLearning, the program used by all teachers at my high school to post important documents.

Although we use less technology in class, students at UGA still use the some of the same forms of media as in my high school. For some classes, we still use GroupMe to keep in touch with classmates and for group projects (setting meeting times and delegating responsibilities).  Social Media usage has also changed slightly. The first few weeks of college especially, I found myself not having time to check my phone as frequently. While in high school, it was easy to zone out in class and scroll through Instagram, college classes are much more rigorous. When not in class, there are also so many things to do that cell phones have become much less of a priority (Although, they are still a big one).