ALICE WASS
Exploring Media
Social Media Presence
As a digital native I have grown up surrounded by a wide range of available social media. When I was younger the popular method of communication was via MSN, a social networking site that allowed users to privately message each other as well as video call. However as the times change so does the social media around us which has led my social media presence to be ever growing.
The oldest social media account that I am still active on is my Facebook page. Facebook allows me to have a large network of friends some people I am close to, others that I vaguely know from school. Facebooks allows me to keep up to date with what my friends from other countries are doing. I see Facebook as the place where I post and talk about the important aspects of my life, for example, which university I am attending, charity work I am doing, my travelling, and any interesting things I do with my friends from the Duke of Edinborough to other social activities. I also use Facebook messenger as my main method of communicating with people as it is a convenient way to message friends especially through the form of group chats. Facebook also helps to keep me aware of any plans or events through liking pages, being a part of groups and being in events, therefore making it my main source of social media.
In contrast I have only been on Twitter a few months. My presence on Twitter is extremely small due to my personal preference of communicating through images, which is mainly due to my dyslexia. Therefore I do not post much myself on Twitter but I look at what others have tweeted and I sometimes retweet people, but mainly I see it as a good source of keeping up to date on the news. The ‘trending’ section on Twitter allows me to see any important breaking news or what is getting a lot of hype, for example, the news of David Bowie’s death was first released on Twitter. Being a form of receiving information fast makes Twitter a valuable social media to have, even if it is not one that I am personally invested in.
As I prefer communicating through images I enjoy using Instagram as it allows me to post about less important aspects of my life but ones that interest me and may attract people I don’t know but who have similar interests. For example, on Instagram I would post one photo to sum up a whole event, or a place I visited or even just something I have baked. Therefore things that I would not see as massively important and would not post on my Facebook for everyone to see. I also use Instagram to follow people I do not know but who have similar interests as myself, because I see Instagram as a more open form of social media compared to Facebook which I would only use to connect with people I knew.
I then have the social media which is less linked to me but I use to follow and post about things I like and which interest me, under this comes my Tumblr, Pinterest, and Goodreads. On Tumblr and Pinterest I explore my interests in fashion, food, styles, and anything that I enjoy as they are not there particularly for people I know to follow but more for myself as a way to explore my interests and link me to other people who like the same things. I do not post my own images or content on these sites but just explore what other users have contributed. As for Goodreads I use this to connect with authors and people with similar book tastes to me as an encouragement for reading which I enjoy. One of the main reasons I use this social media platform is to read others’ opinions and reviews of books I am considering to help influence my choices.
Lastly there is my social media that I use just as a form to communicate with close friends for example Snapchat. I find Snapchat to be a useful social media as it is instant it is a quick something that is important on the go and to hold someone’s attention. It allows me to use images to see what my friends are doing, and to show them things that I am doing as well as just a way to send a quick single message without going into a full conversation, which is highly useful when you are trying to contact each other between lectures and need a quick reply. I especially appreciate it as a way to communicate with friends I do not get to see every day as it gives us a way to see into each other’s lives.
Overall I believe that one of the main reasons I am so present on such a wide range of social media is because each platform offers me something different and allows me to present different aspects of myself to different groups of people. I believe that this is a positive thing as it allows me to not only explore myself and connect with people with similar interests but it also allows me to be more aware of the current media landscape. However I also believe that my social media will change and develop over the years as I change as a person and the media landscape changes.