Just like almost every other person in today’s world, I use social media on a day to day basis. My usage includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and also Snapchat. However these sites were not always my day to day go-tos. Social media changes over time. Some grow as big as Facebook, and some die out within three years such as Vine. In my case social media began when I was in either 6th or 7th grade.
Back in junior high I used AOL instant messaging. It was a very simple form of entertainment to me. I had many pointless conversations with fellow classmates that usually was on the lines of, “Hey, what’s up?” followed by,” Nothing. You?” As boring and useless as this might seem, it entertained me and is what got me started with social media.
Free photo by William Iven from unsplash.com
The next form of social media that I encountered and quickly fell in love with was Facebook. I believe this would be around the time of late junior high or early high school for me. It started once again as another form of entertainment. I could instant message people like on AIM and I could also post statuses and photos and receive likes and comments on them. This was really fun for young me and, to be honest, I probably became a little obnoxious and went a little overboard with Facebook. I either posted or was tagged in way too many embarrassing photos of my young self, and I also went a little overboard with my interests as well. It’s for these reasons that I barely use Facebook today. If I were to connect with someone they would quickly discover my immature junior high self. My information is still somewhat up to date, aside from all of my interests, however I rarely post statuses or photos. Even though I don’t post myself, I still get on occasionally for entertainment purposes.
Today I still use social media everyday. Although I may not touch Facebook as much, I use Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat almost everyday. All three of these I would say I use mostly for entertainment purposes, however they are also good with keeping up with friends. On all three I follow all of my friends and also my favorite athletes, actors, interests, etc. For example, as a car enthusiast, I follow many different car accounts on Instagram to view all of my favorite cars and car related topics at my leisure. I use YouTube often to learn more about cars and also to entertain myself. In I use Twitter to all of my favorite car YouTubers to stay up to date with their lives, as well as the lives of my friends. Finally, Snapchat I use to post small videos and pictures of my life as well as keeping up to date with my friends and see what they’re up to. It’s also entertaining to use the filters on Snapchat with my closer friends.
Even though I use all of these from a day to day basis, I still do not post myself that often. I think my last post on Instagram was on Halloween of 2016. I would say the site I post on and use the most would be Twitter. This is because there’s more variety I think. I don’t always have a picture I can post on Instagram, but on Twitter I can just use text without a photo if I want to say something. In addition, I also use the “retweet” option a lot as well. That being said I would say I am definitely most active on Twitter.
I have definitely changed the way in which I have used social media over the years; from going a little overboard early on Facebook, from maybe not posting enough on Twitter or Instagram. However that does not change the fact that social media still plays a large role in my life. I am looking forward to this class and I hope to learn more about social media and how to utilize it more effectively in my life, rather than just using it for entertainment purposes.
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