Facebook began in 2004, and Twitter began in 2006. As we are in the midst of 2016, I am now becoming a member of both of these social media platforms. But what I'm quickly learning about having accounts with both of these websites (as well as an Instagram, Snapchat and Tumblr) is that it is very difficult to be continually active. It's especially difficult when you don't really know how to fluidly work all of them. I used to have a Facebook and Twitter when they first came out, but I quickly deleted those accounts because I wasn’t enjoying the experience. Since then, many things have changed and evolved.
As part of the millennial generation, everyone assumes that I should know everything there is to know about the internet; but honestly, I don’t know very much. I don’t understand how to use Facebook and Twitter, and because of this, I’m also not up to date about what is going on in the world, either. Some people judge me for this lack of knowledge, but I feel that I am just living my life my way (which just so happens to involve very little social media). I like Instagram and Snapchat because I am a very visual person. Now Facebook and Twitter have evolved to use more photos and videos, which makes it more appealing to me. But they still are all about telling your friends and followers what you are thinking or doing. I personally like to keep those thoughts to myself, or close friends and family.
Being in the journalism program, I understand the need to know about what is happening around me, which requires reading the news. Social media is a good outlet for this, so making the change really does allow me to understand my surroundings better. Being a new writer for Odyssey, I am also supposed to be active on social media. Like I mentioned in my last article, journalism is making a major transition over to the internet. Submerging myself into all social media platforms will only better myself as a journalist in the long run, and I know that.
Trying to understand how all the social media platforms compare to each other is one of my biggest struggles. Trying to remember on which social media platforms you “friend” people or “follow” people just gets confused in my brain all of the time. My friends constantly correct me on this.
There are different ways to share your information: sharing on Facebook, re-tweeting on Twitter, tagging someone on Instagram, reblogging things on Tumblr, and many more terms for every other platform. How is anyone supposed to keep track of all of this? Maybe if you have been using these different social media platforms since they came out, it's become second nature. I, personally, have been late to the game on every single app.
I think that social media is a good and bad thing. They can be super-useful when living far from family or finding out about news. They can also become a bad thing, as well. I have never found the desire in myself to be a super-guru on social media, but I am trying to change that.
I want to be able to use all my social media fluidly and actively without letting it consume me, which is proving more difficult than I thought.
