New Media & Me

Hi. My name is Christy and I am a new media junkie. Yes, I admitted it. I spend far too much time on Facebook, but when I realized that I prefer to share photos instead of “status updates”, I moved over to Instagram. However, that need for instant gratification of having many “likes” compelled me to share most of my Instagram photos on my Facebook timeline. These are my primary social media sites.

I can be found on Linked In for professional reasons and if I were in the market for a new career, I would spend a lot more time on Linked in. Since I am reasonably content with my status quo, I only visit when I have a connection request or I’m extremely bored. Other times, when I hit rock bottom of boredom, I will browse Twitter. Twitter is not for me at the moment, because I rarely have short outbursts that I want to share publically. I see that it can and does serve a purpose, but my currently life is not exactly tweet material. Under different circumstances – oh like, let’s say young party girl tweeting about where the party’s at versus working mom of three small children ages five and under.  My tweets would be rather dull such as, “Kids are bathed and put in bed. Woohoo!”  OR better yet, “Changed diaper #845 of this year. AWESOME!”  I think I will stick with Facebook and Instagram as they better suit my lifestyle.

In less boring times, I do enjoy Pinterest and Blog reading. Just finding the time for those activities is not always easy (remember the working mom with those three small kids?).  I love Pinterest for party and meal planning as well as finding activities to entertain those three small children. My blog reading is generally limited to people that I know to catch up with the details of their lives that they might not be openly sharing on Facebook. Oh and The Pioneer Woman. I started reading her blog years before she became famous with her cooking show.  She’s just entertaining and I have always enjoyed her recipes.

Social media – especially Facebook – has influenced my perspective of events, because I find that I will hear about significant events here first. I tend to see the first headline there from news sources that I follow and if it is something of interest, I will follow up with Google to see what else I can learn about the particular event.  Great example, driving through my town on Friday afternoon and notice a police presence which is very unusual for my town.  I think to myself to check the news when I have a chance to find out what is going on. No need for that, since as soon as I pop open Facebook fifteen minutes later, I find the local news has reported a bank robbery. Since I follow the local Police Department, they were already posting photos of the bank robber in hopes of catching him quickly with updates throughout the weekend. Thanks Facebook! 

I don’t think that new media really changes or impacts my perception, but rather delivers the information more quickly than we were accustomed to prior to the emergence of new and social media. I tend to be skeptical of most things that I read until I can verify the facts as it’s far too easy to post information that is simply not accurate or correct. I am that person that will post the link to snopes when someone posts something ridiculous like the glass in banana babyfood. Confirming information is important and I think that many people are very niave and will believe everything they read. “Well, I saw it on Facebook, so it MUST be true.”

The key to effectively using new media is taking what you read for what it’s worth. Consider the source and confirm the facts from a reliable source. Then believe about half of what you've read once those steps are complete.