Week 2

Three organizations or people I follow are: Joanna Gaines, Lauren Akins, and Fox News on Instagram. I follow Joanna Gaines because I love seeing all her home goods, her decorations, and her recipes. She is a genuine, raw, and inspiring individual. I also follow Lauren Akins because I have a heart for orphans or just those who are less fortunate – and she supports Love One International, which has a mission statement of: transforming the hearts of children, families, and communities by caring for one child at a time. I also follow Fox News because I am a republican, and I enjoy that they are more of a conservative-based news system. The picture I liked most recently was Joanna Gaines picture of her little baby boy that she just had. I liked this picture because I can't wait to be a mom someday.

I believe social media definitely has a lot of benefits, but I also believe there are a lot of cons as well. Last year, I got so absorbed in social media that it actually took a toll on my school work. I was spending so much time on social media and wasn’t spending enough on my homework or studying. My grades began to suffer from this. I was also trying to create this image of how great my life was – I wanted everyone to know how exciting my life was, instead of focusing on the present. I then realized I needed to delete social media. I download social media back every once in a while, but when I feel it is getting too out of hand, or I am catching myself spending too much time on it, I delete the app and focus on what’s most important. It is extremely important to understand the balance of social media and the real world.

In the TED talk by Sherry Turkle, she does discuss how we are more connected than ever before, but also, we have set ourselves up for isolation. I completely agree with this. When I think about this, I think about how you can be in a room full of people and if you look around everyone is on their phones. For example, when you go to your college class on the first day – every single student is on their phone instead of meeting new people and connecting with them. These simple things are so important. During dinner time, my roommate and I always put our phones down, cook and sit down and eat dinner together. This is important to let each other know how your day went, to talk about things, and to have a conversation with one another. This is a device-free zone that I will always have as long as I have a cell phone. I think often times we get so absorbed in our phones that we forget to give full attention to the person talking, and it can be hurtful to that person. Especially when they have something important to say. Being attentive and present during a conversation is vital.

I have a few games that I have downloaded on my phone to play when I am out of service or when I am in a doctor’s office and don’t have social media apps downloaded. Which sounds silly that I rely on my phone to keep me distracted instead of making connections with people or reading a magazine. I play games like bubble shooter, color road, and word block.

When I look back on my battery usage, and the hours I’ve spent on social media, it blows my mind how much wasted time I spent on the app without even realizing it. I would say I spend at least two hours on just my social media pages alone in one day – sometimes more (at least lately – probably time for me to delete social media again). I truthfully could be doing so much more with those two hours in my day than spending them behind a screen looking at what people are posting about their life. Sure, I feel connected to the world by having social media, but I always find more joy in connecting with a stranger and getting to know them than by looking at somebody’s post about what they did for the day. I feel like my community is my family and my friends – not so much the social media world.