Personal Reflection on Social Media - Essay Example

PERSONAL REFLECTION ON SOCIAL MEDIA It is already safe to say that social media forms part of the daily modern life. It is so pervasive with the sheer number of users as well as the high frequency of usage for most people every single day. In evaluating it, from my personal perspective, I get a host of ideas especially in terms of how it impacts me, my life and those of other peoples. Specifically, I can see that it forms a significant part in the way I consume media for personal entertainment; the way I search for knowledge for my personal and academic learning; the way I express myself and interact with others; the way I am affected with events and trends; and, finally, it forms an important part in the trajectory of my future as it is supposedly crucial today in finding work and in working specially in certain fields. Usage and Interaction To provide some context, I would like to talk about the Facebook Messenger first because it represents the way I interact with social media. It must be installed in my mobile phone apart from the Facebook application and the Facebook website accessed through the devices Internet browser. It functions particularly well: every time I receive a message or a friend posts an update, a circular notification pops up in the screen. The fact that the Messenger needs to be separately installed in addition to the persistent notifications that could suddenly intrude when using other applications, it is worth noting that they the Messenger is not a source of annoyance at all. These explain my attitude towards the social media platform. It is intrusive but it is not only tolerated but welcomed because the content is desired. There is also my Youtube account. When I open Youtube in a browser, I am instantly logged in (if I have used the browser before to check my email). Afterwards, Youtube is able to populate its page with contents that I might be interested in, which is based on the types of content I have watched previously. This is convenient for me. At the back of my mind, there is a nagging thought about how the web tracks my activities so that certain types of unsolicited social media contents are pushed forward. I should be bothered. But I am not. To put my attitude towards social media in more perspective further, I would like to mention how and how often I consume them. When I wake in the morning the phone is nearby and checking it is the first thing that I would do. Sometimes, I would extend this to my tablet, which is also close and even my laptop. You may be sure that the object of my interest is mostly social media. The information directed towards me is dynamic and I am compelled to keep track of them. Whenever I have the time, I would go back to browsing social media throughout the day. I think that this is possible because of the mobility of the devices required as well as the availability of the Internet that keeps me connected to other people, to Internet content and information that gets me through the day either in the form of amusement, in my need to be updated or to check important information. I believe that this is the same for most people nowadays. Not a few of my friends would immediately claim that they cannot live without their mobile phones mainly because of the social media functionality. Network Aside from personal and entertainment, the most obvious benefit that social media provides for me is, of course, the sheer number of connections. The quality and quantity of people that I get to connect with in a network that involves my contacts and - for their part -their own contacts result in a humungous number of possible resources for academic inquiry. Suppose I published a query over Facebook or Twitter, then it got read by those in my circle or my immediate network, which should be about 200-300. If, at least, half of this shared or republished it elsewhere, then the audience gets multiplied further. As a consequence, I would probably receive numerous responses and, therefore, academic insights. I would like to underscore, how I used the word "quality" of the network. The reason for this is that there are social media websites that cater to niche group. For instance, there is the case of Linkedin, Pinterest and Academia.edu, among others. Each of these has thriving and lively online community that caters to specific needs. For a student, this is invaluable not just in extending learning from the classroom. For example, Academia.edu allows members not just to connect, network and have conversation. Also, it allows them to share notes, journals and their own resources. There is a great opportunity, therefore, not just for learning but in the area of collaboration. Also, for students who are doing postgraduate degree, the highly stratified demographics are invaluable for research. Each group is typified by common interest, which makes them a convenient source when creating a focus group or a sample population for research. Crowd Sourcing Knowledge There is an underlying and very important character to the platform that allows social media to be a critical tool in obtaining knowledge. Here, the way people obtain information and insights is analogous to the crowdsourcing model. Crowdsourcing as a concept is conventionally attributed to the recent advent of digital or online investment where ordinary people contribute money or resource to finish a product or a project. For instance, a person has an idea that he wants to translate into a product and ultimately bring to the market, he resorts to this process in order to gain fund and leverage. Then, a group of interested individuals or organizations (which could be consisted of a group of investors and capitalists or just members of an online community) pool their resources and contributions together in order to realize the objective. Some of the top crowdsourcing websites that cater to raising funds, for instance, include Kickstarter and Indiegogo. The concept is applicable to finding information or completing an academic project. Instead of fund and capital what the social media does for me is to crowdsource knowledge and expertise. While there are no dedicated crowdsourcing websites for this type of requirement, the social media can function as a similar tool. This is I believe how I should be able to take advantage of the benefits, impact and capabilities of the platform. Reddit is an excellent example to demonstrate this point. Reddit is one of the most important digital communities today. It is an online forum wherein registered users engage in conversation. A member posts a topic and people respond accordingly. When appropriately moderated, the conversation could even take the form of a focus group discussion not unlike what academics undertake in qualitative research. In my case as a student, I have used it to ask questions that I find confounding and those that have not been answered in lectures. If I am lucky, I get to have responses from professionals and industry experts. So the opportunity of learning from actual experience is actually better than the theory-based content discussed in the class. This characteristic is particularly present across all platforms of the social media. I can do the same in Facebook posts, Blog comments, Youtube comments and in similar community support functionalities of big Internet names such as Yahoo with their Yahoo Answers. I remember a friend who crowed about how his thread at StackExchange regarding the Clay Navier-Stokes Millennium Problem was immediately closed because the moderators recognized the responders’ dilemma about the query being too broad. Apparently, the thread required long and differing responses. In the end, he modified his thread in the said forum, and he promptly got the insights he needed. What was important for me in this example is not the dynamics of thread posting or forum moderation. Rather, my friend’s inquiry concerns a solution by a Russian mathematician, published in Russian language. Those predominantly English users who responded did not have any problem understanding the material. They have treated it as a given, finding no difficulty in translating and other contextual necessities, crucial in responding to the theories published. Diversity I would also like to cite the role of social media in the way I gain insights about other people or about cultural diversity. To put this into perspective, one could just imagine a world without it. What it would mean for me is a boxed world where I am stuck to my own circle: family, relatives, friends, schoolmates. Chances are, most of these people would come from the same community and same background as I do. There would be, therefore, very limited opportunity to be exposed to different cultural orientation. Social media is critical in how my perspective has expanded because I get to connect and interact with people who have different ethnicities, values, and ways of life. In the course of my learning, I came to realize that this particular variable is crucial in being able to think about ideas that work in today’s tightly knit world. I recall several works across different fields that reveal how diversity fosters creativity and innovation. Indeed, the World Bank has catalogued the works of think tanks, consultants, academic institutions, research centers and other kinds of organization to identify determinants of innovation, which consequently lead to competitive advantage for private organizations. It was found that cultural diversity plays a critical role in economic success for these entities as supported by extensive empirical evidences (UNESCO, p. 172). While social media is hardly the only source of multi-cultural exposure, it certainly is more effective because of the frequency of my usage. Also, the cultural exposure is further reinforced by the speed by which one could learn and confirm cultural learning points. For example, I have a Japanese friend and a British colleague. I have observed – with my social media interactions with these two contacts - that both are culturally oriented towards drinking tea as opposed to American fixtures such as coffee and soda. One day, while browsing through their Instagram profiles, I was struck with how the drink figures both figure prominently in their cultural tradition but that there are differences. Both of my friends were not available to answer my questions, but I was immediately able to do research and interview other contacts to confirm and corroborate my assumptions. This simple example is very much applicable to any academic inquiry. Self-publishing It is also imperative for me to cite my experience with the blogging platform of social media. The most popular include Blogger, Tumblr and the Wordpress-dedicated blogging platform. I used to maintain a Wordpress blog where I kept a journal that contains short commentaries on current events, food and music. I stopped updating it and eventually forgot the blog account details. However, the experience gave me insights as to how I can use blogs in academic learning. Unlike other social media platforms, blogs allow users to post lengthy materials such as scholarly articles. There are several functionalities in this that allow self-publication to be effective and academically worthwhile. For instance, several months ago, I had to complete a short academic paper on digital marketing and I am concerned about the content: whether I covered all the necessary components and whether I committed errors in the area of structure or in substance. If I still had access to my blog, I could have published it and used several of the Wordpress marketing plugins to propagate the article across the web and share it on my social media accounts, including an invitation to critique the material. Interested contacts and even new visitors could leave a comment or share ideas that could correct mistakes and further enrich the content. In this manner, people can also point out mistakes, check facts and provide new information. Once, an instructor even asked me to post project components in my blog so he could monitor my progress. Again, this is a case that demonstrates the social media’s capability for collaboration. Still in this area, I also intend to begin a new blog again. This time, the content would be centered on my field. I am planning this as part of a portfolio or a goal to build my reputation in my chosen discipline. Challenges If there is one thing I have learned about social media use is that all its benefits could also be its disadvantages. Social media is a double-edged sword, so to speak. Just about anyone can help and collaborate with because of interconnectedness. However, just about anyone could also ruin the experience and opportunities. I believe that that the key factor here is anonymity. People can hide their real identity in social media so when they interact, there is a lack of constraints particularly in how to behave or respond to queries and situations. I would like to describe a fairly recent experience. Last December my laptop, a Macbook Air, was damaged beyond repair. So I wanted to buy a new device. In my online research, I got interested in the Google’s ChromeBook, a laptop alternative prized for its operating system’s speed and hardware portability. I watched a Youtube review and found it helpful. However, I did not understand a particular functionality so I posted a question on the Comment section. The answers to my question came but suddenly the replies were all getting angry. Expletives were soon thrown back and forth as a new debate that compare Google and Apple emerged. My innocent question suddenly became a source of so much vitriol. I was even prompted to join in the heated discussion once in an attempt to correct some glaringly erroneous information. What this demonstrates is how the flow of information can swiftly spin out of control. Imagine my frustration when out of all 216 replies to my comment, not a single one was able to help me with the information that I needed. This is also true in the case of publishing one’s work such as in blogs or in online communities with their message boards for criticism or for more insights. There are people who would inappropriately criticize as well as feed wrongful information. In one particular case, I took some time redoing a writing task because of the problems I encountered in this area. I would also like to cite the speed of the information delivery. With the high number of users involved across all social media, it is inevitable to get confused and misunderstand information. This happened to me several times. For instance, I am a fairly active member of Slickdeals. It is a consumer oriented online forum, featuring deals from retailers such as Amazon and Macy’s. It also has a very lively community, which could yield precious information about entrepreneurship and startups. I have engaged one member in a conversation within a specific topic in these areas. Unfortunately, several users were bound to post on the same thread; some were in response to our conversation while some were following entirely different aspects to the topic. Our conversation started to become antagonistic because some of my posts were taken in the wrong context. The thread of the conversation reached 73 pages and it became difficult to keep track of what has been said between us, hence the misunderstanding. The challenges as I see it with respect to using social media as an academic tool rests on the wrongful resources that is as easy to come by as the correct data. The Internet is free and its users within many social media and digital communities are not constrained by norms that govern us in real life. So, I have taken steps to be more discerning about the people I interact with and the information I obtain. There are several mechanisms to do this. The most important is to patronize trusted and secured social media websites. One of the barometers can be the terms and conditions that govern users. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter prescribe certain rules that serve as some form of code of conduct for their users. There are also sites that have the capability to filter information and identify dubious and abusive user profiles. I have come to be mindful of these aspects after my previous experiences. All in all, social media represents the best that the Internet is capable of in terms of knowledge acquisition. Based from actual experience as a learner, I have come to rely on its networks for research. It is a source of information, a source of insights to corroborate information gathered from other sources, and, a platform that enrich academic activities. Personally, I found that social media contributed immensely to my personal knowledge management priorities, I can also say that my social media usage will allow me to continue learning even after finishing school with the opportunities it provides. There are, of course, risks entailed in using social media as an academic tool. However, they can be addressed with a comprehensive appraisal of the platform, users and quality of content obtained. References Academic Social Networking, 2015. Academic Social Networking. [online]. Available at: . [Accessed 14 March 2015]. Blogger, 2015. Blogspot. [online]. Available at: . [Accessed 15 March 2015]. Facebook, 2015. Facebook. [online]. Available at: . [Accessed 15 March 2015]. Indiegogo, 2015. Indiegogo. [online]. Available at: . [Accessed 16 March 2015]. Instagram, 2015. Instagram. [online]. Available at: www.instagram.com. [Accessed 14 March 2015]. Kickstarter, 2015. Kickstarter. [online]. Available at: . [Accessed 15 March 2015]. 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