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.