Social media in my life

Michaela Tuomenoksa
Assignment 1 / My use of social media

I've been using the social media for as long as I can remember... Okay, maybe not that long, but a long time anyway. As many young people, one of the first social media sites I used was a site called IRC-galleria.net. IRC-galleria was mostly used by IRC-"chatters" and it was a place for the chatters to meet people and post their pictures online trough personal profiles. I was only using IRC-galleria to meet new people and post pictures and information about myself (typical teenager).

This was amazing, because when I grew up (though I'm young) we never used computers or mobile phones. Suddenly it was possible to talk with people trough the internet and post pictures of yourself! This is funny, because years later in 2007 I actually met my husband on IRC-galleria (maybe not the most romantic story to tell your grandchildren).

In 2007 I started using Facebook and have used it ever since. IRC-galleria wasn't that intresting anymore and it was and still is mostly used by 12-17 year old teenagers. Today I am a active user of Facebook and Instagram. I also use WhatsApp everyday, but I don't concider it as a social media, more like a private texting app. I have signed up to Twitter, but I just don't get it. I mean, I do get the concept, but I guess I don't have anything that important or intresting to say that would be worth tweeting about. But I'd like to use Twitter, it's the place you want to be in when you're intrested in following news and happenings in realtime.

I spend several hours a day in the social media. I have my Facebook on 24/7 and friends can contact me anytime (if I'm not sleeping). Yes, I'm addicted but Facebook is free and it's so easy to contact people trough the chat. It's sad though, because I've noticed how unsocial I've become. I hardly ever call my friends and ofcourse that affects your social life. It's too easy to chat trough Facebook. But then again Facebook is an excellent place to keep in touch with friends that maybe live far away or families. You can read about how their doing in life and in a way keep them close. So, I'm not sure how I feel about Facebook. It has it's up's and down's.

I read an article in the DailyMail last weak about Facebook creating a social bubble that we live in, and it was very intresting. It said that our opinions can be changed by the surrounding of our Facebook friends. When you only interract with a specific group online, your own opinion of things like politics, happenings and other stuff can be manipulated trough your friends opinions/posts. This was quite intresting, because I've noticed myself that I read news that only my friends post and talk about (on Facebook) - then I build up an opinion about things when I only read what my friends discuss and comment about. I may not get all the information and only build up an opinion based on their opinions. This has happend alot and afterwards I may read about a case and notice I had all the wrong information and my opinion about this case changes.

I actually have been concidering writing about the effects social media has on us in my thesis, hopefully I'll get the premission to do that. It would be very intresting to do a research about it.