Like most people my age, my relationship with social media started with Facebook. My first profile picture is dated Feb 7, 2007 which is then followed up by a number of very questionable choices as profile pictures. From there I joined the twitter (X) world in 2011, followed shortly by Snapchat, and finally Instagram.
I have a love, hate relationship with social media but when I first discovered Facebook it was great! The way that social media allows you to meet new people and stay connected with friends is amazing. It was my first experience being able to really share pictures and videos with people all over the world. Facebook for me was about connecting with people. Twitter on the other hand was for entertainment. I used twitter as a way of entertaining myself on long bus rides, following entertaining content creators and posting things myself, of course some that I would shake my head at now.
The two sources of social media that I spend most of my time on now are Instagram and Snapchat. Snapchat has replaced Facebook for me. This is a place that I can share photos and videos of my family with my extended family, friends, and even my grandma! Instagram has replaced Twitter as my entertainment media and provides the hate part of my love hate relationship with social media. The part I don’t think about social media is that it can consume you. With algorithms now there is always something popping up on Instagram that either interests you or entertains you so it makes it very easy to spend a lot of time scrolling.
From a professional standpoint I have used both Twitter and Instagram for posting about my teachings, and some of the interesting things that the students do. I have to admit that I don’t use it enough. Each semester I have great intentions of documenting more of their work and experiences but it seems that last few semesters (maybe since I started taking masters classes) I have been pushing it off. Maybe it is a good thing that I am not on my phone all the time.
Thanks for reading. Here is an example of a bad profile pic…..
Hello Russell, thank you for your thought!
I got interested on how you incorporated social media into your professional life as you use it as a tool in the classroom. As you mentioned that you haven’t been as active in posting due to your master’s studies, I believe this shift is an indication of prioritization of your studies rather than being online-which, as you suggest, might not be a bad thing which I agree with you.
Perhaps I think finding a balance between professional and personal use with respect to social media is very necessary. Do you think you would return to online frequently once you are done with this degree? or your perspective on social media has completely changed?