Social Media and the Internet

Social Media is a huge part of our lives now a days but how much does it help us. This week our class looks at twitter and what it does for us. I've had a twitter since I was in high school and haven't really thought about what it does to offer any sort of help to the community or country at all. For twitter I follow mainly my friends or people who post funny things such as Ryan Reynolds and Christine Teigen. I do follow buzz-feed that post articles about the current things going on in the world as well as the random quizzes a person can take to figure out what kind of dog they would be. I don't use twitter for anything more than entertainment and I rarely look at the news that is on my feed so the best tweet I've seen lately has been a story about the rapper 2 Chainz turning one of his old "trap houses" into and HIV clinic. This stood out to me because not very often to people are in a position of fame take their own belongings to help those in need and to the extent of HIV which still is a topic that isn't talked about the way it should be. Its great to see a rapper look at the bigger picture and put something out there to help people. Social media can really connect people when its used in the right way. I do believe that it has given me more opportunity to participate in democracy and have a voice in whats going on in the world, even if it isn't really heard. An example of this is during the past Presidential election there were so many articles and petitions that were online offering a place for voices to be heard about to allow us to speak our minds.

The internet. A place that a lot of people go to escape their lives. We connect to our families, friends and communities using the internet. It used to be more simple as Sherry Turkle talks about how it once was simpler and has become more complex. Just like Sherry and her daughter do I sleep with my phone, but this isn't because it cant be in a different room than me, its because if anything were to happen over night I want to be able to be reached. Just like she talks about families seem to allow phones at dinner when it once wasn't acceptable, and text at so many different points of the day whether its in class or at home many people text. My family doesn't have device free zones, but we do have activities such as camping or fishing where we don't bring out our phones and allow for family only time. I have one "game" on my phone, if it can even be called that, and its a coloring app that helps with relaxation. Other than that I don't play any sort of digital game. This is because I don't really have time to just play a game on my phone. I know that I spend way to much time on the social media apps on my phone a week, in all honesty I probably spend around 20 or more hours a week just on my phone with apps. I do feel as if i am a member of the online community, but I don't believe that I am an active member because I don't post all that often I just observe.