Csmt blog#1

Professor, Sorry for the lateless. I just installed my internet in my apartment and its not working properly so I had to retype on my phone....

The social media tool I most associate myself with is facebook, renren, and weibo. Facebok has become almost a necessary social tool that is expected to be a viable platform for quick communication.somtimes i think it is even a more concenient way to communicate because it is effortless and even mindless to post a message and to peruse through the status of the hundreds of friends that we as busy new yorkers dont have tine to catch up with. But having moved back to Beijing last semester for an internship, I was cut off from facebook completely. I didnt bother to subscribe to a vpn to log on, for the effort of trying to prove that I am not addicted to facebook. And in the beginning it was almost painful, as facebook checking has become a routine and habit that I did not realize that I had. But with time and inconvenience of cellphone internet access, the habits of checking social media platform fade.
I am also very involved in the chinese version of the facebook, Renren, which started out as almost the same interface as the facebook. But through the years facebook and renren have developed differently with its own pros and cons. One of the most prominent feature of Renren is that everyone.that looks at your page will leave a footprint, so you are aware of the people who are constantly checking your photo album, wall posts, and diary entries. I think in a way that changes the foundamental idea of social networking when the sense of privacy is intruded and exploited.

Weibo is the chinese version of the twitter which has only been in existrnce for little over than a year. Its effects are monumental because in the first time the chinese have a open platform for public discussion. Especially in the recent trauma of the high speed rail debacle, the weibo played an crucial role in driving the central television to react and report on the news, which would possibly been burried under due to the embarrassing nature of the subject matter. I am more a taker of the weibo platform than a contributor because I like to use it as a newsource with some commentary which I find very interesting.

Taking a sobering sip from the firehouse

 

 

If my memory is right, my first interactions with social media came in third grade when I thought I was too clever and dabbled with impersonating various classmates over AIM.  Since then, I have participated on BB Forums, Dugg and buried, uploaded and tagged thousands of pictures (with words, not names – this was before Facebook) ‘hearted’ and downloaded songs, and done a bit of light MMORPGing. In years following my initial transgression, I hope that I have reformed myself, though I’ve taken more of a backseat ‘lurker’ approach to many of the sites that I now frequent, posting or otherwise adding content at a rate that seems to have dropped off significantly from my early use.

 

Why might this be? Perhaps it has to do with taking on more adult responsibilities: living off campus, working in a number of environments, etc. – I have far less free time than when I was a Freshman, when I joined Twitter and Tumblr and is structured quite differently than in high school, when my distractions were chiefly on Flickr and Facebook.  In earnest though, I think I do as much reading of certain sites as I did posting. As a user, perhaps I feel like it is less of a risk, less investment and much less work simply to read other peoples’ posts than to work to craft your own. Compared with the struggle of writing a well-balanced Facebook status update, reducing down to a cogent tweet or crafting a media-laden Tumblr post (all the while maintaining a certain online persona) the constant dopamine drip of reading posts from bloggers I’ve picked or friends in the echelon of “top news” is much more relaxing.

 

Rather than go through the trouble of adding a new photo to Flickr (and cross-posting it to Tumblr, which then automatically updates Twitter), most mornings I find myself wading through ten pages of overnight Tumblr content (about 100 posts), stopping only when I recognize the posts that were among the last things I read before going to sleep.  I used to have this “can’t miss it” attitude for Twitter before giving up in frustration when I realized I had also unwittingly followed over 400 accounts. (I have since worked towards reducing that unhealthy number.) I stopped tweeting as often (and switched over primarily to Tumblr), but felt that my user experience was not overly different whether or not I added much to either site.  I like to think I was an evangelist for a number of sites, but without much feedback on either service, I am left with a growing cynicism about the democratic distribution of attention and activity on these networks (and even a bit of self-doubt about whether I am actually good at online socializing). I hope that while taking this class my tweet-rate will increase slightly – there’s really no excuse for not being able to peck 140 characters once in a while.

-@ari /klick / here

 

 

My everyday use of social media

The first form of social media I used was AOL Instant Messenger, which I began using in about 5th or 6th grade. As Jessica said in her post, it was the way to keep in touch with my friends outside of school before I got a cell phone. I would sign on every day when I got home, leaving my buddy list up while I did my homework and answering IM’s when I felt like procrastinating. At the time, what really intrigued me about instant messaging was the freedom I felt to say things that I was too nervous/embarrassed/scared to say in person. I was extremely shy and socially awkward before I got to high school; using AIM was incredible to me because I could essentially say anything I wanted while sitting safely behind my computer screen. (Can’t tell you how many dumb middle school “crushes” I revealed through AIM...) Around the same time I made my first email address, which was helpful for keeping in touch with my family members that lived across the country. I still use email for this purpose, although now it’s primarily my way of getting updates about events/my classes at NYU, and contacting interviewees for the articles I write for work.

Like most of us who were adolescents when social media took off in the early 2000’s, I also went through a MySpace phase, which was quickly replaced by Facebook and more recently, Twitter. Since I started using them, I’ve found these types of sites extremely helpful in staying up-to-date with my friends’ lives without actually having to talk to them. When I do talk with them, following their status updates on my news feed helps steer the conversation: for example, if I see that a friend has gone from “single” to “in a relationship,” I could ask about that (or not ask about that if it was the other way around). When I got my first smartphone a couple of years ago, I immediately downloaded apps for my favorite social media sites so it would be even easier to stay connected. The first thing I do when I turn on my phone every day is check email, Facebook and Twitter. I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but social media is such an ingrained habit in my daily life that I think I would actually feel a little socially lost without it.
 
Donath’s article “Sociable Media” brings up an interesting discussion about how we as a society are managing our increasingly complex personal social worlds. There are so many more people that we keep in contact with now because of social media--are we, asks Donath, replacing strong, close personal ties with a larger number of weak ones? On Facebook users can access a documented history of the back-and-forth interaction between any two users with an option called “View Friendship.” Is that really what our personal relationships are being reduced to...a series of posts and photos? Maybe for some people this is the case, but I like to think that “friendship” on social media sites is a supplement to a real friendship. For me, it’s the easiest way to stay as close as I can to my friends that have gone off to different schools or moved away. I follow their updates on Facebook and Twitter so that on the few occasions I can actually see them face-to-face, I won’t feel like I’ve missed out on the important [or even the trivial] things that have happened in their lives. Perhaps I do love/use social media more than I should, but I think I’m okay with that if it keeps me in touch with people I care about.
 
Nicole F - @nmf255

My Use of Social Media

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How I started to use social media to communicate with other people is slightly different. My first use of social media, which was Email, did not start by using my personal computer, but my cell phone. I had not created any email accounts for my PC or done any online chatting with my friends until my junior year of high school, when I needed to create it to communicate with my host family living in Ohio. In my fourth grade, I had been already taught a basic use of the Internet in computer class, but I did not really use the PC at my home except when I need to use a search engine. PC was not so necessary for me. In order to communicate with my friends, instead, I exchanged emails by using my cell phone and its email address provided by a carrier (in my case, it was Docomo).

I started to actively use other outlets of social media only after I came to the U.S. for university. Before that, my life was heavily dependent on my phone. I did almost everything I needed to do with my cell phone, such as sending emails, taking pictures, and downloading musics etc. After I left my country for the U.S. I started to use Hotmail to exchange messages and chat with my family and friends in different countries. And I created a mixi account (SNS used exclusively in Japan) to keep updated with my friends in home country, and also made my Facebook account in my sophomore year.

Since I got an access to Gmail this summer, I no longer check my Hotmail account so often and hardly sign in msn messenger for online chatting. Therefore, I would say, now the social media I am most active on are Gmail and Facebook. But the primary social media I use in my daily life can change depending on where I am. Gmail and Facebook are my main social media outlets when I am in the U.S..Once I go back to my country on vacation I do not use Gmail and especially not Facebook as often as I do here; I start to spend more time in using the email address of my Japanese cell phone and mixi.

Even though some of my friends have left social media, particularly Facebook, I cannot follow suit because I think it is still indispensable for my life. As cited in Ellison’s article, people seem to make use of SNSs like Facebook to retain and cultivate connections with friends whom they have already built up “offline relationship” with (221). I also use SNSs for this purpose. On Facebook or mixi, my friends and I can know about each other’s lives and feel a connection even when we are physically far away. Many of my friends have gone back to their homes not close from here, but as long as I see their activities or see them online on Facebook I feel that I am still connected with them. This is what I think is very helpful about SNSs that it let users to keep linked with their friends no matter how far they stay, and it is one of my primary reasons why I use SNSs. 

 Moreover, what social media technologies enabled us to do is to get back in touch with friends with ease. “Social media”, I think, should include any media using the Internet or mobile phone technologies, which allow users to achieve interactive communications among each other. With this “social media”, like Facebook, we can come back to friends, who we have not contacted for a while, and talk to them by sending such a short message like “Hi, how are you doing over there? I miss you!”. We do not have to think of a letter-long message. Whenever some friend pops out in our minds and wonder how he is doing, we can start a conversation by posting or sending a casual, brief message to him. I believe that this use of social media is important for a lot of users including me to sustain the “offline relationships” with a number of friends whom they cannot physically reach easily. 

Lastly, although I think social media is useful and necessary in my life now, I am not sure if I want to keep using it as much as I use now after I graduate from NYU. I am sure that I will use email systems in the future but I don’t know about SNSs. Actually I am logging in Facebook less times than before. I do not want to lose connections with my friends on Facebook, so I do not think I will deactivate it. But at the same time I am not feeling good about the fact that I can easily lose the connections once I break up with Facebook. There might be so many relationships I or my friends could have more cherished when we spent time together in the real world (not in the virtual world) if we had not known about Facebook. I feel, because people know they can meet anytime again in the virtual world, they tend to less solidify relationships in the real world. I just try to keep myself in a realm of social media because it is where my friends are, but to be honest, I do not stay there so willingly.

 

Sachi

Blog Post #1: Social Media Reflection

I remember the first time I encountered "Myspace". My friend had pulled out her father's new camera and had been taking numerous pictures of herself for her profile. She was convinced I wouldn't be able to capture her best shot and so I watched as she experimented with the light as it fell on her face and the adjusting lens. Oddly enough, she always stuck with the same pose (a pose which I am sure we are all familiar with): she would rest one hand on her hip, and the other would hold the camera, extending out on an upwards 45 degree angle. Tilting her head to the left, her chin down, and her large black-eyeliner eyes peering up into the lens, she would smile revealing teeth, and at times, settle on a mischievous smirk. And *SNAP* the picture would be taken, she would turn the camera around and see her head exploding on the viewing screen, with a sliver of her reaching arm enlarging at the edge of the photo. After another 50-100 more shots taken, she would settle on one.
Was the one she chose an adorable picture? Not quite.
Was it meant to be sexy? Probably.
Was it? Let's hope not.
Who knows what her objective was, but I'm sure at 15 years old, her profile picture and the accompanying profile "skin" (backdrop) was meant to be more of a statement of identity than anything.

Today's social media has not only expanded exponentially in the technical sense, but it could be argued that the reasons for our using it has expanded in just the same way. From using it as a tool to connect us to our family and friends, both near and far, to meeting strangers, networking, sharing and gaining information within groups and to the public, we are changing the way we are interacting with each other, and the way in which we are presenting ourselves to the world. I'm not sure how others feel, but for me,   I never thought that I could make that transition from Myspace to Facebook. I had thought that I would remain a Myspace user, especially since I had put so much dedication into constructing a unique skin. But everyone around me was moving on, and eventually, I had to too. I always wonder, which pressure forced me to finally make my Facebook profile? Was it because I was afraid I would be out-of-the-loop with my friends and the things they were doing? Or was it more a fear that I would be forgotten? Or that they would never be able to see the things about me I wanted them to know from my profile --things I never got a chance to tell/show them? It's hard to say, but as a Facebook user, with no expiration date in sight, I must say, that while my reasons for staying on Facebook has expanded (i.e. I like to stalk friends from time-to-time, it's keep me awake in the face of daunting homework, and it's just something to do!), I mainly stay on Facebook because I like that people who know me/want to get to know me can see who I am and what I do, and vice versa. I suppose that is what I like about the benefits of social media as a space where people can meet and interact without physical pressure or anxiety. That does not mean, however, that I don't have a problem with it.

My biggest issue is with people who feel the need to constantly text or Facebook when they're with people they know (especially friends) and are having a conversation with! To me, it is not only distracting to have to stop in the middle of a conversation to send a text message, but it's also rude if you are texting or checking out a site while someone is talking to you. There are always exceptions, of course, but for the most part, I think people are beginning to forget that people not only deserve each other's attention, but they also need to live in the moment --especially for us busy New-Yorkers, who tend to strut fast, with headphones on, and cell phones secure in our pockets, or in hand. It is hard; I am certainly guilty of clutching my cell phone every where ever I go --checking/sending text messages most of the time, checking my email at least 20 times a day, and browsing Facebook every chance I get. But even with this "obsession" and need to be on top of my work, I think we can always strive for a better balance in the ways that we stay in touch with friends who are physically distant and the ones who are right in front of us.

Obviously, I have jumped far in subject from the beginning of this post about my "emo" friend and how our profiles were created as statements of identity for us, to the end of this post about the anti-social side of social media. The link between these two subjects is, I think, the fact that our increased use of these tools in the real world affects our social behavior, and in turn, our identities as well (how we perceive ourselves and how others see us). Everyone varies in their use of social media and technologies, and I certain teeter between the line of social media love and hate in my use and disuse. There is no doubt; social media is here to stay, affecting how we live our lives and the choices we make. But that's the thing: choice. We can choose what we use, how we use it, and when; along with whom we use social media with, and quite simply, whom we choose to enjoy pure company with --social technology excluded.

--Charli Lee.

Social media and me

My first experience using social media was early in my high school days. I created a MySpace account to help me stay in touch with my boyfriend at the time. It felt a little pointless to use an entire social networking site to communicate with one person, especially a person I saw almost everyday. Though I eventually added friends, it still felt like a useless part of my life. With no background in AIM, AOL or any other instant messaging programs, I felt completely overwhelmed by my MySpace account and eventually let it fall to the wayside.

It's funny to think how far I've come in terms of using social media. I have about four gmail accounts that I check everyday, multiple times per day. I have a Facebook account that I check almost everyday. With my Facebook account, I'm always logged in, even if I don't plan on updating my status or commenting on any pictures. I just enjoy the freedom associated with clicking on the Facebook link in my browser's bookmark bar and being fed an almost infinite stream of consciousness. Granted, most of my newsfeed is pretty irrelevant to my life, but it's an amazing way to fill idle minutes in my day. I also use Facebook for public relations purposes. I schedule updates regularly and I get a little thrill in seeing the notifications on the pages I manage, even though it's not my authentic self interacting with the Facebook users.

My Twitter account is by far my greatest untapped social resource. I'm fully aware of the wonderful things that Twitter can do, having studied them in more than one class, but I can't seem to make this beyond brilliant social platform work for me. At first I thought Twitter was the ultimate stalker's fantasy, but knowing that I can post as little as I want in any given month has liberated my social experience. I started following reputable news sources along with the cast of Jersey Shore, and the stream of consciousness has turned into a stream of life that is incredibly full of interesting ideas. I've recently acquired a smart phone and now desperately want to be a part of the Twitter feed, but my Tweets feel as insignificant as the onomatopoeia implies. I think the biggest trouble is that most of my followers are people I don't know, and without an audience to write to I'm lost. I'm not sure why Twitter is taking so much longer to catch on with the college-aged demographic than Facebook, but it's definitely defeating what would otherwise be the perfect social network for me.

Roxy Dyer
@roxyredstar

Gaby Colletta's Blog Post #1 : An All Encompassing Medium

It is clear that digital media has affected and continues to affect our personal connections.   In chapters 1 and 2, Baym introduced many facets of the digital age that play out through our interactions.  It is easy to have a love-hate relationship with an entity that drives force in opposing directions – as indicated in Bayn’s explanation of how digital media finds ways to hinder yet empower us.   I decided to take this class for the purpose of discovering the weight of the “love” side in this relationship.  

 

As an advertising junkie, I wanted to share a commercial developed by Google Creative Lab.   I thought it would be interesting to examine how a form of social media acknowledges the power of digital and capitalizes on many themes that have been introduced in our texts.   Baym talks about synchronous media, and the ability for instantaneous communication across distance.   If you have ever seen the Google search story “Father and Daughter,” this ad exhibits just that.   Furthermore, the ad exhibits the intimacy that can be achieved through this medium (a common critique of digital media).   Please see link below for reference:

 

 

The ad itself mixes Google search, YouTube, instant message, e-mail, digital book, and many other features of the Internet to tell the story of a relationship between a father and daughter.  The messaging is an amalgam of texts, words, emoticons, visual and auditory that emphasize the power of the medium.  In this ad we see a social medium evolve to encapsulate several other modes of communication.  Donath highlights the tension between persistent and ephemeral.   In observing this video the process appears to be ephemeral steps connecting one another into an overarching, persistent message that I personally feel successfully touches the viewer.    I thought this ad would be interesting to share because it effectively illustrates the capacity and potential of digital media.   In taking this class I hope to gain perspective on how to apply digital forward thinking to the idea building process.     

Social Media in Everyday Life

Our generation has grown up always with some form of social media in our lives, evolving from AIM and AOL homepages to MySpace to Facebook and Twitter. Having access to instantaneous communication with our friends and some sort of public medium of expression has been a standard of everyday life.

 

Every day, I’m on Gmail/Gchat and check Facebook periodically; the novelty of my new LinkedIn account is starting to wear off. I just moved into a new apartment and have been without easy access to Internet for a week—this could have been my experiment into a life without social media, but I always found myself reaching for my phone to check email, sign into Gchat, and get my fix of Facebook updates more often than not. The Internet and social media has removed most all barriers to communication and made people’s lives much easier, but I do wish that I didn’t feel the need to be constantly connected and in tune with other people’s lives. Email is indispensable when communicating with professors and potential employers and as a means of receiving information. But in terms of Facebook, sometimes it’s nicer to have your friend tell you about getting that new job rather than reading it on your Newsfeed first.

 

Someone mentioned during our last class that they went without Facebook for a while in China, where it’s blocked. I studied abroad in Shanghai for a semester, and somehow one of my first priorities was getting around the “Great Firewall.” Facebook allows you to be connected to a world that you’re familiar with, no matter where you are. People move around often and lose touch; Facebook is a common space where people can communicate more casually and with more ease than through email. I think it’s a valuable medium where everyone in your social circles can interact with photos and links and thoughts, but it can become too much when your group of "friends" expands too far and you end up reading one too many deep, self-searching status updates. As with most things, it seems to be best used in moderation.


Cindy H

Blog #1 - Social Media Usage

Upon consideration, I’d say that social media technologies are a big part of my daily life—whether I’m actively participating or passively observing the actions of other via social media.  I use social media technologies both at home on my laptop and ‘on the go’ with my mobile phone.  I got my Blackberry aka ‘crackberry’ about two years ago and I think back and wonder how I lived without it.  Especially being in NYC, we live in such an increasingly fast-paced and productive world, that getting emails in real time, in any location, and being able to respond immediately seems almost imperative.  I use email throughout each day whether it be for work or personal reasons.  I’ve become much more comfortable with writing correspondence as opposed to talking to people on the phone.  This ‘phone-phobia’ is an ailment that I think a lot of our generation faces, simply because we don’t call people as often as people did prior to the advent of email and the web.  As noted in the Donath article, email is asynchronous media, which means that we can draft messages to our liking before sending them, as opposed to the synchronous media of a phone call where must interpret social cues at a quicker pace and without visual aid. 

In high school I was adamantly opposed to creating a Facebook account, seeing it as unnecessary. However, I finally gave in at the end of my senior year when I realized that I’d want to stay in touch with old friends and be able to keep track of new friends in college.  I’ve slowly become increasingly addicted to the site and now visit it multiple times a day, generally just for a few minutes each time to see if anything new/exciting is going on in my newsfeed.  While I do maintain my profile by occasionally adding updates, posting photos, status updates, comments on others’ profiles, etc.  I tend to take the stance of more of an ‘observer’ on Facebook—essentially, keeping tabs on everyone since it’s too ‘costly in money, time, and effort’ (Donath) to stay in direct contact with a large social network.  I’m definitely cognizant of my self-presentation on Facebook, mostly because I have ‘friends’ who as Ellison noted in her article, aren’t necessarily ‘friends’ in the traditional sense of the definition.  My network of ‘friends’ is composed of people like past teachers, co-workers, relatives, etc.  This is not to say that I portray a different persona, but rather, I present my profile in a way that I would present myself everyday in public.   Alternatively, I use Twitter, which I’ve had for a few years as an outlet for more personal thoughts and opinions that I share with a smaller group of friends of whom I’m more selective about allowing to see my tweets.  I have a ‘private’ twitter account, mostly because I don’t think the general public needs (or even cares) to have access to my daily ramblings.  I also have a Tumblr account where I follow various blogs.  I go on this site occasionally when I’m bored and feel like mindlessly scrolling through pages of cool photos, etc.   

I studied abroad all of last year and relied heavily on social media technologies to stay in contact with friends and family as well as update everyone on my adventures in a different country.  Even without seeing people face-to-face for multiple months, I was able to stay a part of their lives through digital means.  I’m also able to stay in contact with people I’ve met while abroad now that I’m home—internet truly disregards the boundaries of ‘space’ and ‘time’ and I’ve been able to create my own ‘Global Village’ as McLuhan called it.  

I also use social media in a more ‘professional’ sense meaning that I help to manage the social profiles of other people and companies.  This can sometimes even mean acting or posting information as another person. The anonymity of the web not only allows this ‘deception’, but makes this easy—so much so, that audience members or media consumers sometimes turn a blind-eye and accept it.  I work and intern in the music industry where artists, labels, etc. are increasingly focusing their efforts on digital marketing strategies. This work includes creating and maintaining the online image/persona for profiles with the intention of having large amounts of traffic interact with them.  Being a music-lover, I used to have a Myspace profile, primarily to discover bands and listen to music.  It’s quite evident that Myspace is ‘dead’ and I’m not convinced that even a big name celebrity like Justin Timberlake (recently recruited by Specific Media to help re-brand the site) can help resuscitate it.  I’m also a big fan of YouTube, because I love watching music-videos, interviews, performances, etc. and it’s interesting to see what the general public is saying about the content in the comments section. 

The interesting thing about social media is that individual sites constantly come in and out of favor not only because technologies evolve, but we as users develop new needs/desires for how we consume media and communicate with others.  I look forward to exploring social media from the cultural perspective as I believe it can provide insight on how to more effectively utilize it in personal and professional ways. 

Emma L

Ceci Diaz: Social Media and Me

            
“Yeah, I can live without it.” That’s my rote answer when people notice how connected I am. Of course, I can live without social media, but part of me fears that it would greatly change and affect the quality of my relationships. (Cue all the eyerolls from social media haters.) Think about it: whenever there is a link, video, article, or photo you want to share, we instinctively turn to our respective “accounts” to share with our friends. My face-to-face conversations with friends constantly refer to many of the things we share online, be they YouTube videos, silly memes, or interesting news stories. For all its cons, how can we pretend this isn’t wonderful? Thanks to this, interpersonal relationships have an entirely new dimension.

           
Facebook is almost like a reflex to me, but more to keep up with certain friends who are quite active on it. I’ve never been a chronic album uploader, nor do I photoshop my ~omgpicz~ to change my defaults according to special occasions. Twitter, however, is practically a lifeline. This has become a news source for me, a way to keep up with my favorite celebrities, comedians, writers and fashion lines, not to mention a way to be alerted about special events and deals. All my other social networking has become secondary to Twitter. The site is now a starting point for me exploring other blogs, videos, and articles that I, in turn, share on Twitter. The more I interact on Twitter, the more I appreciate it, and the more I get out of it.

           
I have the embarrassing confession that my first interaction with social media was on a Xanga when I was thirteen and convinced I had great, deep thoughts to share with the world. Somehow, I convinced myself that talking about adolescent boys and the Disney channel was not only providing the world with a unique perspective, but was also incredibly interesting to the world. Obviously, I was disappointed when no one cared. Thankfully, as I matured, so did my social media usage. I love using Twitter for “mind-casting” and “joke-casting;” poking fun at myself is pretty much my specialty.

As much as I use email, I don’t necessarily consider it “social media.” Perhaps my definition is a bit narrow, but, even after thinking about the readings, I think the “heavy” social media requires a sort of unique identity construction and self-presentation that email lacks. I am always on Gchat, and attached to my Gmail, whether on my laptop screen or my cell phone, but I don’t consider it “social media” as much as a convenient way to keep in touch with my close family and friends while at work/in class/etc. 


Ceci Diaz