Reflecting on Social Media

The second unit of Writing for Digital Media was all about social media. It's positives, negatives, what it can be used for, and unconventional ways that it can be used in. There were also two projects in this unit: a group presentation on a social media platform and a storytelling project on a social media platform of our choice.


Before getting started with any of this, we learned that the interactive internet is often referred to as Web 2.0, focused on Web pages that allow use-generated content. Web 1.0 was the first iteration of the internet. Of course, Web 1.0 is a retronym, name given after the thing was created; how could anyone have known that the internet would one day become filled with interactive user-created content? In Web 1.0, most users are consumers of content. In Web 2.0, users are also often creators of content. All of those platforms that are popular today that allow things like likes, comments, and user-uploaded material are all examples of Web 2.0. Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter... the list goes on.

Next came our social media presentation projects. My group decided on Snapchat, everyone's favorite way to share quick pictures and videos with friends. Before diving in to this project, we discussed social media as a whole. We discussed why we have so many specialized representations of ourselves based on different platforms. To clarify, the way someone presents themselves on a platform like Facebook is likely different than how they do on Instagram (and likely wildly different from how they do on something like Tinder). The most prominent negative that we discussed was that people narrow themselves down based on the platform. It made us consider if this issue is exclusive to social media, though. Maybe it’s not the platforms, it might just be something we do naturally. For example, the way that someone presents themselves at church is often different than how they do at a party.

This then went into a discussion about when and how people should be held accountable for what they post online. Is a teacher getting fired for having a picture of herself in a bikini on Facebook appropriate? And how different is that from a teacher getting fired for using hateful slurs and language online? There was a general consensus that it's okay to be fired for using slurs and stuff online because that's reflective of one's character and thoughts, but that being fired for posting a picture in a bikini is unnecessary and harsh. The world of social media has presented so many new questions about how it is appropriate to conduct one's self online.

After considering all of this information on social media, our class split into groups and began working on our presentations. Each group picked a platform and did a short presentation on what it is, how it's used, who uses it, and some potential problems with it. Some of the platforms we used included Snapchat (what my group did), YouTube, Twitch, Webtoons, and several others. 

We jumped right into learning about our next project: telling a story through a social media platform. To prepare for this, we read several pieces where the user used a platform in an unconventional way to tell a story. For ours, we. had the option of "twisting" the platform's intended use or using it traditionally. For mine, I'm going to use Google Tours to tell a story based around the locations that inspired the Studio Ghibli movies. I'm still working on it, though, since it's due this upcoming Thursday.