~ Week 2 ~

Social Media

1. I followed three new accounts: @NPR, @realDonaldTrump, and @FoxNews. I followed NPR because it includes all topics - music, art, news. It gives a wide variety of the latest events and keeps me up to date on things I would not normally know. I followed Donald Trump because I always hear people talking about his tweets and how ridiculous they may be, I had to see them myself. Fox News is another to keep me up to date on the latest events. I sometimes watch them on TV too, so I figured I might as well follow them too!
2. The best tweet I saw while scrolling through my feed was - "North Korea has just launched another missile. Does this guy have anything better to do with his life? Hard to believe that South Korea....." by Donald Trump. Although I was not tempted to retweet or even like this post, it stood out to me. I think he tweets things without thinking too much about it, hope that doesn't get us in trouble with North Korea...
3. I feel social media has enhanced my ability to take action, but I wouldn't go as far to say it has encouraged me to participate in democracy. I think social media helps bring recent events and issues to my attention because I am more likely to spend time on social media than sitting and watching the News on T.V.. Social media gives more opportunity to take a stand against something you're passionate about. For example, my Instagram is always full of these companies that sell products such as clothing or jewelry with the intention of using that money earned to help save animals, stop animal cruelty, adoption, and many other things. Animals are my passion and that gives me an easy opportunity to help the cause. I do not think it enables me to participate in democracy though. Whenever I see things on social media invovling the government, they usually are not positive, which makes me more bothered than motivated to join something.

The Internet

1. I 100% agree with Sherry Turkle's talk. Her comment about networks taking us places we do not want to go stuck with me because I think technology is a persuasive tool that may not always be positive. She also mentions how technology is so psychologically powerful it changing who we are, which I have seen first hand with friends and them changing who they are to have a certain "image" on social media. I agree with her that all of this is setting us up for trouble which may lead to isolation rather than community. My family has not officially reclaimed any places in our house as home, work, play, or cellphone-free. We do, however, try to stay off of our phones while eating together or in the living room just hanging out. We all love family time, so it never seems to be an issue. If I ever feel that someone is not listening to me, I would normally confront them about it gently and kindly force them to listen to me!
2. I do not play many games on my phone at all. I use more social media in my free time, but back when I had an iPod, I had many games. My favorites were car racing games and word games. I like the car games just because they were fun and made me feel like I was a super good driver when I didn't even have a license yet. The word games were always interesting because they challenged my mind and allowed me to compete against and beat my friends!
3. I would say I spend about 7-10 hours a week on social media. I wouldn't necessarily say I am part of an online community because the social media I am always on has to do with friends that are part of my real life community. I do not like how much time I spend on my phone, I try to make it a goal to only go later in the afternoon and not right when I wake up. I have tried many times to quite social media, but it's just too hard! So, I just try to limit my time spent on it and spend more time face-to-face with people and more time spent in nature.