In August of 2003 I was a freshman in high school. I was sheltered from having attended a private, catholic school for nine years, but made the decision to attend a public high school where I was most definitely no longer sheltered. I wore a pink Tinkerbell shirt to orientation for goodness sake. The Tinkerbell shirts soon went away and I was becoming a more mature 14 year old (insert laugh emoji here). This was the year I first started using social media, besides having used email and AIM. I created my Myspace account and from then on have been using some sort of social media consistently since then. Currently and regularly I use Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest. I do have Twitter on my phone, but I rarely ever use it or open the app. Out of those main 4 I use Facebook the most. This is because of the number of people I am connected with, the updates I see on the lives of my friends and family members, and the ability to sell items on buy/sell/trade groups. I use Instagram mostly just for the filters so I can then upload them onto Facebook and I almost never scroll through my Instagram feed. I check Snapchat once a day (more if I am sent something) and I send snaps throughout the day maybe once or twice a week. I check Pinterest maybe twice a week, but I never post anything or create boards. I used Twitter and Myspace years ago, but have stopped for various reasons. I stopped using Myspace because I replaced it with Facebook. I stopped using Twitter because Facebook sort of took over my social media life; I didn’t have much of a reason to keep scrolling through Twitter. What I like about social media can be explained very easily. I like how it is instant and in the moment. My immediate family lives in California so when my mom goes on a hike with my twin sister I can see pictures as they’re hiking through Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat. This is the main reason why I like social media. It also allows me to feel close to my family when they are so far away. Social media makes it easy to view and send pictures and to stay updated on the lives of those who you may not see or talk to every day. While I do like social media, I also have problems with it. I don’t like how I am constantly checking Facebook. The app is so easy to access that anytime I am bored I can just refresh my feed to view something new. I try leaving my phone in the other room or deactivating my Facebook page, but that never lasts long. Social Media has changed communication for me by making my communication much less verbal. If I see something at the store that my boyfriend might want I will snap him a pic of it and tell him to let me know if he wants it. If I haven’t talked to my sister in a few days I will snap her a pic of something in my life or post something on her Facebook wall instead of picking up the phone to call her. When I am selling something on one of the buy/sell/trade sites I do all of my communication through messenger rather than on the telephone. Is it easier? Maybe. My top two sites I use right now are Facebook and Pinterest. I should also classify Instagram as one of my favorites because this is where I put filters on pictures to send to Facebook. My boyfriend and I are about to start renting a three bedroom house and each get a room to design for ourselves, plus our bedroom so Pinterest has been a huge help to me in that department. Facebook on the other hand seems like it has just become a part of my life and I’m okay with that. It is somewhat hard to think about how many times I check Facebook, but if I can see pictures of my dad finishing his marathons or videos of my one year old cousin walking then I can live with how many times I open the app. When I was younger I used social media more for myself. I would post pictures from parties in high school and update my Myspace “top eight” when I had gotten into fights with friends. Now, I use it more to see what everyone else in my life is up to.
I really just want to get a more clear understanding of using social media in a professional manner. I definitely need to clean up my LinkedIn and this class is a sure way of doing so. I have a friend who was a social media manager for a website where people would post a picture of something they wanted and others would “hunt” and find where they could buy it. She was always holding contests, updating content on their social media sites and live streaming from conferences or events she was attending. I think getting a more clear understanding of using social media professionally might help me to decide on what career path I might take.
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The semester went by way too fast; that would probably be the only thing I didn’t like pertaining to this class specifically. August came and went and so did Halloween, followed by Thanksgiving and then, boom, it’s the last couple of weeks before finals. The semester went by fast, but I enjoyed every class period. This course was enjoyable for many different reasons; the topics covered, the course structure and most importantly, the professor. The topics covered in Mass Communication Technology intrigued me because I am living through a whole new digital age that is evolving every day. The topics in this class closely related to me because I use the technology we learned about, all the time. From social media outlets like Twitter and Snapchat to being able to use the social media outlets on different Apple devices such as the iPad, iPhone, Macbook, etc., almost everything related to my life. There was just enough out of class assignments, I think, with the course being a two hour credit class. I really enjoyed writing the blogs and I hope that my future journalism teachers require this. I don’t know if I could keep my blog going without a prompt, but maybe that will be my new years resolution. I thought the PowerPoint’s were very useful and helpful. For the first half of the semester I didn’t have the book so I relied on the PowerPoint’s and my notes for my blogs. I really enjoyed the visuals and examples given on the slides. All of them seemed to be relatable in some way. It’s refreshing when you have a teacher that is so passionate about his or her work. You can tell journalism is apart of who Carol is and that made taking this class much more enjoyable. I find it is easier to learn from a teacher who sincerely enjoys the subject and who can clearly teach the topics being presented in the course because of personal experience.
I don't think my ideas about journalism, media and computing changed, but I was definitely made more aware about how the three of those connect on a larger scale. Every day I learned something new in this class, and I think that is my biggest take away. Learning something new in class. From the PowerPoints to lessons from Carol's personal life I have knowledge that I can use personally and professionally that I probably wouldn't have received if I hadn't been in this class. Overall, I am very pleased with this course. I hope to take more of Carol's classes in the future and look forward to furthering my studies in the journalism department at Creighton. I am in this class because of a few reasons. One, I love learning about any topic related to journalism. I sat with my adviser trying to create my fall 2014 schedule, and I asked her if I could take all journalism classes. She laughed and said no. Two, I had the pleasure of interviewing Carol for an article I was writing for the Creightonian last semester, and she was wonderful. I hadn’t taken any of her classes yet, but enjoyed that short period of time we spent together. Lastly, it was a credit I could use to fulfill my journalism requirements. My experience with media started very early on. When my twin and I were around 4 years old we got our first mac desktop; although we usually only used it for school work and playing games. Now, I am most often connected to social media – Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. I get all of my news from my phone through the weather channel, CNN, and my hometown paper the Marin Independent Journal among many other avenues. I tend to get a lot of news and information from Facebook. The news and information might not always be true so I usually Google the news and get the information from a credited source. I do find myself always on a screen when I am bored. Whether it’s my laptop, iPad, or iPhone I'm constantly checking them. I gravitate more towards my phone for quick information because of the easy access. I use my laptop strictly for school work, and I use my iPad for watching television shows on mediums such as Netflix and Hulu Plus. The only part of news media that frustrates me is when it comes to reporting on celebrities. You always see “from a source” who is usually anonymous. It bothers me how people can write about someone’s life when they essentially don’t have all the facts. This has been a huge debate from my peers and me when it comes to Queen B (Beyonce) and her husband Jay-Z. There have been numerous reports that he is cheating, and that they are getting a divorce. As a huge Beyonce fan I dispute any of these claims. I think that news media is all about getting viewers or getting someone to view their blog or webpage. On the other hand, I think that journalists, or people that refer to themselves as journalists take their job more serious. Journalists check the facts and ethically won’t print something that isn’t true. I have zero experience with programming; however I am in a Computers and Scientific Thinking class so as the semester goes on I will have more of an idea on what programming is all about. I think it’s awful how connected we are as a world, especially in America. Children especially are glued to the television, their tablets, and want a cell phone at a younger age. Instead of playing with sidewalk chalk outside or having a lemonade stand during the summer I’ve seen a lot of children rather stay inside glued to their devices. I think the only benefit of having the world so connected is that we get information incredibly fast. When there is a tornado watch, an alert can be sent to your phone from the Weather Channel. When there is an Amber Alert, the alert is directly sent to smart phones. Technology is only becoming more advanced.
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PaigeCreighton University Archives
December 2017
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