staceylk84-blog

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Week 3 Reflection cont.

Finally, in August of 2020, I created a LinkedIn account after hearing about the benefits of the application for those seeking employment. LinkedIn allows account holders to connect with other professionals, businesses, and corporations. The site provides numerous tutorials allowing users to learn a range of different skills that can boost their resume or career in the professional world. LinkedIn is more of a professional space than the previous platforms with most users aware of the fact that any content posted on LinkedIn can be viewed by other professionals and possible future employers. However, this seems to be the case more and more for all social media platforms as employers have little reservation when it comes to viewing or checking employee’s personal accounts to ensure that the company’s moral and social standards are being upheld. I have noticed that social media users must tred lightly when posting content for all to see, especially future employers. I have reviewed my accounts on numerous occasions to delete anything that may be inaapropriate with one example being any poolside or beach pictures. While I don’t mind my close family or friends seeing me in a bathing suit, I don’t necessarily want this image floating around the office break room or crossing my bosses mind at any point in time. I have found myself considering my audience before each post on any platform and asking myself one question—would I want my boss to see this?

[staceylk84-blog]

Week 3 Reflection

I began my social media journey at a time when AOL Instant Messanger (AIM) was the latest and greatest way to communicate instantly with friends. The messaging service was similar to modern day text messaging, but rather than using a handy, portable phone to shoot messages into the universe at rapid speed, one needed access to a computer and reliable internet service to chat with friends. I was in college at the time and mostly used AIM to connect with friends from high school and those attending separate universities. By 2006, I was all aboard the Myspace train. Myspace allowed users to create and design their own profile page. One could boost their profile with colors, images, and music that would be displayed when other users clicked on your page. I would spend hours looking for the perfect images and perfect songs to highlight my existence on the application. As the years passed, my interest in Myspace waned and I can no longer remember if I deleted my account or just stopped using the platform altogether. Around the same time that I gave up on Myspace in 2011, I became aware of a new creative space where users could connect to share hobbies and interests. This space was cleverly named, Pinterest. Pinterest users can “pin” or save items to “boards” or folders for collecting and sharing with others. Perhaps, I enjoy Pinterest so much to this day because the application allows one to organize their interests, hobbies, recipes, and tips into categories for easy viewing. Pinterest is focused more on finding and expanding upon your interests and less about posting daily activities and following others. Later that same year, I discovered and joined a new space called Twitter. Twitter allows users a limited number of characters to express their thoughts by sending out a “tweet” or posting a message to the application. I found that I rarely used Twitter to put my thoughts into words and send them out to the virtual world. Instead, I often found myself scrolling through the tweets of others. I enjoyed looking at comedic tweets for a laugh and following numerous news organizations to receive breaking news updates throughout the course of the day. I still use Twitter to gather news, information, and updates on the latest issues in America as well as abroad. Shortly thereafter, in 2012, I created an Instagram account. Instagram allows users to post pictures and videos followed by a short caption or no caption. Life can be so busy that we don’t have time to read every post or article that interests us. Instagram provided users with a break from reading lengthy posts and profiles, instead focusing on images. The platform made it easy for users to stay connected without words by posting pictures that captured moments from day to day life. I have been an avid user of the platform since I created the account and it may be my most frequented platform to date. It wasn’t until 2017 that I succumbed to my sister’s pressuring to form a Snapchat account. Snapchat allows users to instantly share pictures, text, or both with other friends and users. Any content that is shared among users can be viewed for a few seconds before it is deleted…permanently. I mainly use Snapchat to share images of my daily life with my sisters, providing them with essential updates on the meal that I have prepared for dinner or the dog’s sleeping position on the floor. Admittedly, I’m still perplexed as to why this information must disappear from the chat after three seconds of viewing time, but I can understand how this would be helpful if you were engaging in more scandalous behavior for which secrecy is imperative.