Blog 4

Introduction

“As soon as he wakes up in the morning, Ronnie, an undergraduate student at a large, Midwestern research university, sends a tweet from his phone, which lets his roommates know he’s awake.” (p.9)

         This quote right here is the first sentences of Buck’s introduction.  When I first read this I found it to be much more interesting style of sentence than I had expected to start reading in a paper.  Not only did it catch my attention it also told me a lot of information about the person being observed.  We learned immediately that Ronnie constantly uses social media, even when he just wakes up.

“August 2011, 83% of 18–29 year-olds used a social network site (Madden, 2012). Their interactions on these sites were also purposeful, as Pew reports that this age group is that most concerned with online identity management: 71% of them have changed the privacy settings on the sites they use (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, & Zickuhr, 2010)” (p.10)

         This statistic about 71% of this age group changing privacy settings on their social media websites to me was a bit interesting.  I know that many people change their privacy settings, delete many aspects of their online presence on websites, or delete social media altogether when they graduate from college and look for new jobs.  The reason for this is because they all know many employees go online and search the person out on social media websites.  The people that delete their accounts feel potential employees may be a bit nosy but the employee is also just trying to be thorough in their decision to hire someone or not to.  Both sides have strong arguments on that topic I believe.

Methods

“Criteria for participation in this study included a strong presence on social network sites, as judged by an up-to-date profile and daily participation on a social network site and participation in a writing-intensive course.” (p.12)

This was the absolutely most important thing about this study that was being done.  There needed to be a participant that was involved on social media frequently.  I think many of us in the class are finding some aspects of this assignment to be difficult because some do not use social media.  Since starting this project my partner has had no post updates on her twitter account and I have had very few.  If we both were heavy users of the website this project would possibly been easier for the both of us to start in the least.

“The research interviews, for example, allowed me to gauge my own interpretations of comments Ronnie posted online, as well as to gain background information unavailable in the textual activity I recorded.” (p.13)

This little quote was about when she conducted her own profile tour with Ronnie.  I liked that she did that because she was able to get a better understanding about him and how uses the social media websites he uses.

Results

“The information he shared on Twitter varied widely, such as updates on what he’s listening to, thoughts and musings on his way to class, images from his daily life, and questions to his friends about weekend plans or other topics. Some of these tweets were updates on his mood and daily activities:” (p.15)

These sentences were a lead up to a few example tweets of Ronnie’s.  As you can tell by the description here, Ronnie used twitter for just about anything.  This resembles how I used to use twitter when I was a younger college student.  At the time many people were newer to twitter and weren’t quite sure what they should or shouldn’t post on there.  It reminds me a bit of an older television commercial where a dad is sitting on a couch and he felt he needed to update his twitter and tell everyone he was sitting on the couch. 

“He checked Twitter constantly from the website, seeing it as a habit, part of his daily routine, and something he did when he was bored:” (p.22)

This describes myself in a lot of ways.  If I am sitting around in a classroom waiting for class to start and I happen to be on my phone, chances are I am reading something on twitter.  I find myself reading different news articles or just seeing what the new developing gossip is from the last time I checked which was probably just a couple of hours before.

Discussion

“Over the course of the study, Ronnie began to have serious concerns about privacy and ownership of his information on Facebook” (p.31)

This is something that I have always thought about too when I used to be more involved with social media.  It’s a bit scary at times knowing that people trust random websites online with their information.  A while back I’ve gotten rid of facebook just because I didn’t want some random person to be able to look me up and find out things such as where I am from, where I go to school, and where I live.  I prefer to keep a lot of things in my life private between friends and family and off of the Internet.

“Facebook used to include certain default fields on one’s profile where individu- als defined themselves primarily by the consumption of various media, listing favorite music, movies, television shows, and favorite quotations and writing an open description in the About Me section.” (p.33)

Similar to Ronnie, I was never one to fill these boxes out either.  I have always found those sort of questions like “favorite movie” to be a bit odd and difficult to answer.  While I do have an all time favorite movie (Tommy Boy), it may not be my current favorite watch.  Questions like favorite quote I would have no issue filling out but other things such as music, movies, books are a bit tough to answer because there can be many.

Conclusion

“Ronnie represents a rather extreme case of social network site use, both through the number of sites he used and the amount of activity he engaged in on each site.” (p.34)

Once again it would be easier to do this study if we all were more active on social media websites.  In Buck’s case, she hit a gold mine with Ronnie and how active he was on social media.  I found Ronnie to be a bit of an extreme case though.  He stayed up with his normal activities such as being with friends and studying, but it also seemed social media was a bit too infused with his normal everyday life. 

“The online activity that individuals engage in on social network sites does not just stay online” (p.35)

This is absolutely true and this is really evident in college classrooms amongst the students I believe.  Many times college students become friends on websites such as facebook just for the sole purpose to communicate about certain classes they may be in together.  When I was a member of the website I know that I used to add people I met in class on there as they would me just so it was easier to communicate about the class.  Our online conversations became part of our conversations we may have had in the classroom the following day.  Social media has become such a large part of many people’s lives that it is often a central piece of in person conversations when you meet up with someone.

Blog 3

How often do you post updates compared to the amount of times you only read through other people’s updates?

Are the people you follow all tired into a similar community?

How about the people that follow you?

How do you utilize hash tags or the trending topics?

What devices do you use to check twitter? Which device do you use the most and why?

You don’t post often, how do you decide when to post?

You profile says you joined April 2012. What social network did you use then and are you still active on those?

Why did you make a twitter?

Is it what you expected to get from it?

In your biography you say that you’re a Georgia Peach but then I saw accounts related to Bellevue East follow you. Will you explain what that is all about?

I noticed a few different Billy Madison references on your feed.  Is that a movie you have always enjoyed and why do you choose to post those references?

How do you choose to post the picture that you do post?

What is the most important aspect of your twitter account: socializing, keeping up with people you’re a fan of, or staying current with news?

There are a lot more retweets on your profile compared to your original postings. How similar are the things you retweet compared to your personality on and off of social medias?

Blog 2

The three articles that were assigned to the class to read had many similarities between the authors or people featured in them.  Each one of the articles that we read are written or discussed by strong minded individuals that have found something that they are either passionate or feel is necessary to discuss with others like them.  Each one of these people had their messages shared and based off of social medias. In this case twitter and Facebook were the two main social medias used.  The articles that focused on poetry focused on using twitter to get their poetry out to the public and to help find their community.  It is noted heavily in the beginning of the article that poets of color are now using social media to get their works out there to their intended audience because they are not required to white wash their poetry and have it be intended more so for white readers.  The second article that I read was about the mother from the northeast not posting a picture of the young children next to their impressive snowman.  In this article she talks about how she debated if she should have or shouldn’t have posted the photo. The photo is a great picture of the three kids and it looks to be an enjoyable memory for them but it was made apparent that that was not the case at all.  She decided against not posting the photo to share with her Facebook friends because she would think she was lying about the occasion.  The last article was about a twitter user that started a hashtag that dealt with domestic abuse.  By her using the hashtag she was able to find her audience because the audience was women that had been through similar situations like her. 

            “We write not as isolated individuals but as members of communities whose beliefs, concerns, and practices both instigate and constrain, at least in part, the sorts of things we can say.”-Harris.  The quote that you just read was perfect to describe the people in these three articles along with everyone else that uses social media as a way to interact with their communities.  When I read that quote I think about people posting on twitter with hashtags or wherever they would be posting about topics.  These people have opinions that they likely share with their friends or other people they are associated with and writing helps spread their beliefs to other people that may or may not agree with them. 

            “Recent social views of writing have also often presented university discourse as almost wholly foreign to many of our students, raising questions not only about their chances of ever learning to use such an alien tongue, but of why they should want to do so in the first place.”-Harris.  This is a quote about the language that is used by instructors at universities and their students.  Students tend to use a different language outside of the classroom than they would inside when they are working on schoolwork or just having a casual chat with their instructors.  College students today have grown up always having a computer around by the time they attended school for the first time.  Along with having computers many probably have had some sort of messenger or means of communication to other computer users at a young age.  With having had computers for so long, the current college students have evolved their languages which people from older generations do not necessarily speak or know all too well.

            

Blog 1

My name is Andrew Cipperley. My hometown is a small town named Ogallala and it is located on the western side of the state.  I am a senior history major and I particularly enjoy learning about the American Revolution and WWII.  Many people wonder and ask me what I plan on doing for work since I am a history major.  Well at this point there is no definite answer but I often tell people I plan on going to law school just to get them off of my back for a bit. Outside of school my life is a bit more interesting and would probably be a better topic of discussion than my thoughts about some event in history.  In my free time I enjoy exploring different wilderness areas.  Around Lincoln one of my favorite place is Wilderness Park.  I enjoy walking around and finding new places there because it is such a large area.  It’s great for getting some simple exercise and getting a bit of fresh air and that is why I go there a few times a week.  Outside of hiking around I also enjoy shooting guns, skateboarding, reading, and watching sports.  My favorite cricket team is Sri Lanka’s national team. They were the first cricket team I watched on television and they won.  So that’s just an off the wall fact for you about myself.

When I think about the reasons why I write there are many reasons that come to my mind.  I think that I enjoy writing because it is a skill is important to pass on what knowledge we have.  If you only pass your knowledge down by spreading it vocally, eventually it will get twisted, lost in translation, or lost completely at some point.  With writing, your knowledge is right there in front of whoever wants to read and learn about what you have to say.  There aren’t many ways to interpret a message that is written out in ink right in front of a person.  You can’t twist the words that much and you get out of the text whatever the author wanted you to get from the text.  So I guess when someone asks me why I write, I can say I write to pass the knowledge I have to the next person.

From what I have always thought and what I gathered from the assigned reading, community is a very vague term for what groups you tend to be associated with.  It makes mention that students at a university are a community and that is absolutely true.  There is a bond between every student that attends UNL because we have that common ground that we are students at the university.  Other than being in a community of students I also belong to a community of Christians.  Writing and language is very important in the different communities that I am involved with.  For my Christianity community I had to write multiple papers about my faith when I became a full-fledged member of my church.  Writing also helps keep things simple around the church too.  Our congregation is a fairly old group of people that aren’t necessarily up to date with technology such as email so whenever we need to pass a message to them we just leave notes in their mailboxes at the church.  This has helped bring older members in my church’s community closer to some of the younger members.  Clearly that is very important for a community.