From Project to Leisure – My Instagram Conversion

Months ago, my friends began trying to convince me to download and maintain my own instagram account. I had always neglected the idea, thinking that it would waste a lot of my time by constantly being distracted with yet another app on my phone. As one friend would give up struggling with me, another would begin to try and convince me. Two of my friends, in particular, would especially poke fun at me for not having an instagram account yet. When the course started and I heard that I would need to begin a new social media platform that I have never used before, I didn’t even hesitate to decide which one because I immediately knew which one I would choose. So I downloaded instagram and looked for my two friends, followed them, and within hours received a text from each of them saying, “You finally caved.” Aside from the fact that I knew I would probably start one sooner or later, I was quite pleased to find a sweet reason to justify starting one sooner. During the entirety of this semester, I myself have established my own instagram account and have begun to follow all of my friends and family who already are using it. I have found myself enjoying it a lot, and I find it very easy to get a quick update of what fun activities everyone is up to by simply scrolling through all of the photos on my feed.

I would say the hardest thing for me concerning instagram is probably finding things interesting enough to post on my profile. I don’t want to be that friend who is always posting photos of the food I’m eating, or taking selfies of myself every day to prevent my friends from forgetting what I look like all the time. Oddly enough, I don’t think I am the only one with this problem: 37% of instagram users have never uploaded a photo! And another 25% of users have an average of only 1-3 photos! So I look for opportunities when I feel I am laughing or enjoying myself, and (if I remember) I take a picture to post on instagram. I especially like posting photos of myself with others, instead of just myself, because I feel a lot more personable when I include them. I think that the biggest problem was probably my taking so many credits this semester, which somewhat prohibited me from doing a lot of fun things to document. Unless of course you find the library thrilling or get a kick out of working in faculty housing maintenance, the rest of my time this semester has been rather uneventful. Aside from my hesitation to post everything I did every second of the day, I did check it often every day. I would say I check my instagram a minimum of 4-5 times a day. Just whenever I have a free second with nobody around to talk to or I’m bored in a class, I will scroll through my feed to see if there are any new photos posted from my friends. At times it became a bother because sometimes I would check and nothing would be new, so I would feel like I had just wasted 20 seconds of my life somehow. The feeling wouldn’t last long, but it would deter me from checking again anytime soon. Other than that, I found it pretty natural to use the platform every day, and I very much enjoyed it most of the time.

I would recommend instagram to anybody. I find it to be a very interesting way to find out more about those I don’t know super well, and a fun way to keep up with those who you are already very close with. I would, of course, warn one to be very careful when using it, that they watch how they portray themselves in pictures and comments. But altogether, I think most of the younger generation should have one and be able to share their fun moments with the rest of the world. For the older generations, I’m a bit biased, and believe it is more targeted towards the youth. After all, 90% of instagram users are all under 35 years old, with 28% being within the 18-29 years old bracket. It is very compatible with one’s facebook profile, and can simultaneously post photos to both at the same time. I love it, and plan on keeping my instagram account (as opposed to Twitter) to continue sharing my fun moments with all of my friends and see how they are doing as well.

I loved this class.

Some things you might already know about facebook

            The funniest thing happened this week! (I told this story in class while we were discussing the negative aspects of facebook) The morning of my group’s facebook presentation, I got a message from an old friend. We grew up together and have been facebook friends for a long time, but we don’t really make any effort to talk to each other anymore. So I’m getting ready for class that morning when I see I have a facebook message. It’s him, and the message says, “Trevor are you mad?” to which I respond, “Am I mad? Why?” Well, my ‘friend’ goes on to explain how somebody had posted photoshopped pictures of me on an Internet page and that I should ask them to take them down. He sent me some broken link and told me how to enter it into the browser correctly to see my pictures… I started laughing to myself as I instantly realized this obviously wasn’t my friend at all, but a hacker. So I started to go along with it to see how far he would go. I asked if they were the pictures he took of me last week (I haven’t seen him in years) to which he replied he was not sure, but possibly. Then my friend jumped back onto his facebook and changed his password, thus ending my discussion with this hacking stranger. Too bad, I really enjoyed talking with the guy…

            Well this week we had to prepare for our group presentations. Lucky for us, our group got assigned to teach the rest of the class about facebook...  But who doesn’t already know everything about facebook? We all have one (even our teacher) and our entire class communicates via facebook for homework and collaborations. So the task of teaching the class about facebook was actually very interesting because my group and I went searching for things that the class wouldn’t already know. I was particularly blessed because my group assigned me to head the business and education section of our project (Given, I am the only business major in our entire class). Easily enough, I went searching and found a lot of information about businesses using facebook. Facebook even has its own page promoting business on their site (See it here) which I won’t go into explaining too much, because it’s already very well organized on their website.

            Just over a year ago, I had the privilege of serving the Lord shoulder to shoulder with the owner/entrepreneur of Mystic Chains Co. He himself launched the company with a friend in November, and consecutively created a facebook page to promote it. Needless to say, facebook has been a great media amplifier for their business and is a fun way to get potential customers interested in their products. Check out their page if you have some time, and you can see all of the pictures sent in from customers, as well as contests and sales they promote on facebook, too.

            As for the education side of facebook: I don’t have much to say. I believe that to use facebook as an educational resource you would first have to educate the person who plans on using it on how to effectively learn from it. The facebook education page itself seems like just a bunch of links to other educational resources. Given that it does connect people to educational opportunities, I wouldn’t necessarily consider it a primary educational resource. There have been countless apps and games created on facebook to promote online learning, but none of them seem to be as effective as a real classroom setting, or simply better-developed software.  I believe that facebook is primarily a social platform, and will always be primarily social regardless of any attempts to promote its educational use. It is what it is: A social platform. And there are so many well-developed software programs for teaching out there, that it seems like a waste of time to try converting facebook into a platform for them too.

In defense of 'slactivism'

                Well this week has been pretty well educating. I went from having a pretty negative perspective on a lot of social media platforms and ideas, to having a more positive understanding view on them. Our discussions in class are captivating, as we can all address each other’s concerns and doubts. Within a group of so many people actively studying the psychology behind social media, many different perspectives are gathered between us all to contribute towards an unbiased perspective. And it is exactly this environment that has caused me to change my entire attitude towards social media and the use of technology today. I no longer look at it with a condescending view or try to deny having used facebook recently, because now I am more knowledgeable in WHEN and HOW I use it, so it is beneficial instead of time-wasting.

                This is how I often feel when using social media platforms:

                Some of the biggest problems associated with internet and social media use are: Cyber-bullying, pornography, slacktivism, time-wasting, addiction, video-game violence, and other crime. ^_~ We have been able to study these problems during class, and share multiple articles and sources to support our research, which led me to become pretty well negative about it all. Honestly, I didn’t really want a lot to do with technology after that.

                But then, we began to spend a lot of time talking about altruism and slacktivism. While altruism is described as the unselfish devotion to the welfare of others, it is used in social media to describe how social network users readily share information that might be useful to other users. After touching on altruism, we began studying slacktivism, which (according to Wikipedia) is “usually considered a pejorative term that describes ‘feel-good’ measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it take satisfaction from the feeling they have contributed.” Slacktivism is typically associated with signing internet petitions, reposting information for charity organizations, or joining supportive groups by just clicking ‘like’ on a page. These actions are generally viewed as wasted energy, given that they all require minimal energy to begin with because they almost never gain the results expected by its critics.

                I believe slacktivism is viewed from the wrong perspective. If we view it as something that its not, then of course we are going to get a bad impression of it! One must understand that slacktivism is not a means through which the founders would expect true change to occur. I believe the true purpose of slacktivism is to spread the word, share the idea, make it known so that those with the resources necessary might be able to find out about it and then react. So slacktivism, in itself, is beneficial when viewed as solely the medium through which information is relayed.

                Still not convinced? Take a gander here: In defense of #BringBackOurGirls and ‘slacktivism’

From Information to KNOWLEDGE

Fact: We are held accountable for the way we use the time and information allotted to us every day.

“With greatly increased free time and vastly more alternatives for its use, it is prudent to review the fundamental principles that should guide us. Temporal circumstances change, but the eternal laws and principles that should guide our choices never change.” –Dallin H. Oaks

Not only should we consider how we utilize the information that we have attained, but we should be very mindful to what types of information we are ingesting. Why even bother giving time to those things of no worth? If in order to attain knowledge we must process all of the information that we take in, why waste our time with such information that will just develop itself into useless knowledge? When it comes down to it, we should be seeking knowledge to aid us in our return to our Heavenly Father. And I think most of the time we (youth) find ourselves wasting our time with what is honestly USELESS information. Whether it be comedy, or random facts, or inappropriately entertaining media I believe it is causing us to waste our precious time which should be filled with more meaningful and constructive information. This really hit me hard while I was listening to this talk. I, myself, need to be more mindful in what I spend my time watching and reading every day.

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Going on youtube is probably going to be one of the most difficult, as it always seems to know exactly what I want to watch next (as I’m sure it happens to everyone!). Also, groups and pages on instagram and facebook that just keep me occupied and busy with things that I don’t really care about! Without any intentions to buy anything (or any money either) I for some reason enjoy seeing what people are selling on “BYU-H Sell Your Stuff” group page. Sometimes I find steals that I might need in the future, but I never end up buying it anyways! So why do I waste my time on it so much?!

Elder Dallin H. Oaks taught this principle with a personal story of how he had spent hours studying through hundreds of law books to prepare himself for an assigned paper. When afterwards, he realized that if he had just known what he was looking for beforehand, he could have filtered through the books to waste less time and study only those things pertinent to his paper’s topic. We need to do the same thing: Decide what we NEED to study (Academic and Gospel knowledge, specifically) instead of just studying everything wordly from movie facts to celebrity gossip.

In response to this personal breakthrough with my use of my time, I have started following all of the gospel and scripture related twitter pages I can, to keep myself focused on the Savior throughout the day and not get distracted with the unimportant things in the world. We must establish priorities within every aspect of our lives. And God’s work should always be first.

I believe time-wasting is the greatest downfall of our generation. It’s not so much the social-media platforms or how often we check them, or how dependent our lives are on them. It’s how we utilize our time with all of them! If only we could watch ourselves so much more carefully and make the best of our time. Kids would be spending so much less time on their computers at home, and so much more time getting to know each other and serving their fellow man. So, just as we’ve been learning in our awesome Psychology of Social Media class, we need to learn how to use social-media tools (and technology) in a healthy manner and avoid those things that are of no worth to us.

When I have the opportunity to teach my own children, I plan to teach them time-management. In that they devote their time to those things pertinent to the kingdom of God first.

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” 3 Nephi 13:33

In conclusion, I’d like to share THIS VIDEO with you. A very dear friend of mine emailed it to me a couple of months ago, and Brother Kinghorn mentioned the story during our class the other day.

Smiling Depression: Really, it's a thing...

Tweet of the week from ctrevor501:

            “Strength comes not from frantic activity, but from being settled on a firm foundation of truth and light.” #ElderUchtdorf #psychsocialmedia (LDS General Conference Talk)

            This week has been a good week. A BUSY ONE, but a good one. I have found myself using the social media platforms on my phone significantly less. I forget I even have them on my phone sometimes. AND IT FEELS GREAT. I know I was freaking out last week because I felt so involved with my facebook and instagram towards the end of that week, but it has blown over already. I mentioned this freak-out I had to our class this week, and some of them were surprised that I was checking my phone so often for updates. They said that they hardly ever want to check their platforms. But after explaining how I had JUST put all of those platforms on my phone, and I was fairly new to all of them (except facebook), I realized I might have been anxious those first few days. But then, just as everybody else, my episode ended and I was free again.

            I’m not sure if it was just my own self-control, or if it was the demanding load of homework I received from all of my classes this week. I have been in the library for multiple hours every day. It’s crazy, but I feel better being busy with homework and classes than I do being lazy and looking at my phone to “feel busy” on facebook and instagram.

            A peer of mine shared an article this week about the consequences of instagram. It’s right here. I found it incredible that there is a such thing as ‘smiling depression.’ Seriously?! That’s a thing?! And then… Wait for it... It’s even considered a biopsychosocial disease! Wow! Who knew instagram had SO MUCH INFLUENCE! “One factor for the high rates of depression seen in social media-friendly people is the inconsistency they observe between their ideal cyber self and their self-image.” Obviously, what people post on their instagram is extremely edited after another extreme selection process. People will take a couple of pictures of something (or themselves) before finally approving one to be post-worthy.

            Thus, instagram is full of millions of great pictures that deceive reality. Just like the internet, people can really be whoever they want to be online. This is probably why so many people feel bad about themselves when comparing themselves to other instagramers; they aren’t capable of making a cooler instagram (hahaha). But really.. This is serious. People are honestly becoming depressed from these social media outlets, and it is destroying their sense of self-worth and self-image.

            I will be executing my project’s experiment starting next week. Although I will not be able to disclose the results with anyone until it is finished in two weeks time. So we’ll see what happens, and hopefully I can apply my research findings to this very topic. Until next week!

The Social Media BOMB

            “If our hearts were as pure, as chaste, as snowy as Pythagoras’ was, our ears would resound and be filled with that supremely lovely music of the wheeling stars. Then indeed all things would seem to return to the age of gold. Then we should be immune to pain, and we should enjoy the blessing of a peace that the gods themselves might envy.”

I love quotes like this. I don’t know why, but they just always seem to catch my attention in a way that nothing else can. They’re usually pieces of a greater speech or literature, and the best parts of them! Even while I have been experimenting with Instagram these past weeks, I have noticed that, besides having just a lot of pictures, there are also some users that post quotes in jpeg form, too! So not only is there photographic beauty in many of the posts, but also literary beauty as well that really gets me thinking. Particularly this one:

            This week in class, we have been talking A LOT about this. As our class discussions often tend to turn towards technology we have to remind ourselves that, although all social media platforms are run by some form of technology, not all technology is social media. And although it has very well influenced the growth of social media, we must not confuse the two. There is a lot of psychology behind social media: How people relate to each other over social media platforms is very different from how we relate to each other in real life. Don’t believe me? Then take this humorous video, for an example. Pretty good, eh?

            Anyways, as we’ve been going through class, I’ve been thinking a lot about this whole technology thing, because it just seems so intertwined with social media that I feel it has actually become a very serious concern within our class discussions…

            …Particularly with the idea of PATIENCE. What is patience? Who knows anymore! Since the evolution of technology, patience levels in people have gone WAY down, which contributes to anger problems going WAY up. I think that these two should start to be looked into more seriously. Maybe it’s not just media violence, but the aspect of the technology with which we access these forms of media that create so much impatience and stress in children (and even adults) when they are placed in real-life situations with those people who (honestly) cannot in any means function faster than a computer can! We are conditioning the future generations to expect things so much faster than they should. I fear that someday my children will be talking to their grandparents, and will soon become impatient because they can text or IM one of their friends and have a full on conversation about last weekend’s party before grandpa can even finish telling his campfire stories! This haunts me.

            But I think the real reason behind my fear, is most likely myself. Having before been stubborn to downloading facebook, instagram, blogger, and twitter to my phone; I have “caved in” and have begun using all of them since starting this class last week. Given, I already had a facebook, I did NOT have it on my phone, for fear of it taking over my life.  And that’s kind of what’s happening to me.. I find myself looking and looking and looking at all of the different platforms I now have on my phone, checking them a few times each day to see if there are any updates or notifications on all of them. Personally, I admit it is wasting a lot of my time. And I feel it, but I just feel so attached to it at the same time, and (since I also don’t want to fall behind on class updates on facebook or twitter) can’t really do without them anymore! What to do?

            I guess I have turned myself into a guinea pig on this one. I have pretty much dropped a “social media bomb” on myself this past week, and am now assessing the situation to figure out how to resolve everything now.. Anyways, once I figure out the solution, I will have to get it on here ASAP. As well as my project I am currently working on, which is to be announced within the coming weeks.

Don’t forget to THINK before posting!      

The Beginnings

                So this first week in PSYC390R (Psychology of Social Media) has been quite an interesting class. We have only had two classes, but take in mind that each one is 3 hours long! We are planning on studying everything about Social Media including its history (which I am particularly interested in). This first week seems to have been filled with a lot (and I mean A LOT) of technology information, which I have been rather hesitant as to point out that technology is not exactly social media, although it is definitely the foundation for it. We have watched several videos; including this old fella (don’t ask me why it has those Korean or random foreign-language subtitles) which taught us all about the evolution of the internet, from simple computer networking to international everything networks.

                While having been studying such topics, we also have been assigned (yes, an assignment) to use our facebooks often (especially with part of our homework being ON facebook), create a twitter account, and begin using an additional social media platform for a term project as well. Since I had not yet begun using instagram still, I decided to use it for my project. Needless to say, the first day I created my instagram account I had two friends text me within not even 6 hours of doing so: “You finally caved.” Their reactions were expected, as I knew they would be the first ones to say anything about it because they were the 2 who have always harassed me for not getting one earlier. My reasoning was that I didn’t want to have multiple social media platform, because I feel it is a burden to have to check them all individually all the time.

                We have also begun reading the course textbook, which is Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder. The book is interesting in how it takes social media from a more scientific and psychological view (obviously), whereas I had never thought so much of these things before having enrolled myself in this course. We will come to see what happens in these next few weeks. I have a couple social experiments I am planning on performing within these next two weeks, but I cannot share them just yet due to probable interference with my statistics. But I will for sure let you all know just as soon as I do.

                Thanks for reading today! Remember to use social media to UPLIFT others!