Reflections

Taking a look back at the beginning of the semester - this was the blog post I came across - this blog post described my media usage at that time:

The internet is an endless source of information and resources. My daily usage of the internet consists of checking email, at least several times a day, checking facebook, and mostly doing some type of research. Three out of my five closest friends currently live outside of New York, one of them is just several hours away by car, while the other is overseas. Checking email frequently allows us to have conversations and communicate with each other on a regular basis. Even though it may be difficult for us to talk on the phone because of time differences, and schedule conflicts - emailing each other regularly makes us feel that in one way or another everyone is quite close. Also, I help come up with different projects for local youth groups, so many a times I spend my time doing research --> looking at other organizations and figuring out how they do what they do, looking for team building activities, and other useful information for youth group leaders. Throughout the day I tend to check the New York Times website regularly to get my daily dose of news. Additionally, I use the internet to instant message friends, check bank statements, and buy books.

Moreover, when the class first started out - we were instructed to blog about our social networking usage on a weekly basis. However, for me - from a week to week basis - it did not change too much from the initial blog post. Thus, I refrained from writing that I visited the same social networks this week as I did last week, but rather found different social networking sites and shared the interesting ones with everyone in class. Over the semester, I came acorss anobii, ning, friendfeed, italki, etc. And I came to realize that you can find social networking websites for almost any type of commonality or interest. Some of the students in the class also posted their findings - and shared websites about Twitter like twazzup, twitpic, along with flickr, living social, digg, TED, and slashdot, to name a few. It was interesting to visit these websites, look at what they have to offer users, and learn about the amount of people on these social networking websites.
Everyday - i continued to check my email several times a day and went on facebook once or twice a day. After we all signed up for Twitter in class, I started to check that once or twice a week. At first, I couldn't quite believe I was using Twitter, but as time went on I started to like it. We also signed up for MySpace, but I had a difficult time getting used to it. Even though I checked it about once a week and made an effort to making my profile page look a little bit exciting, I still had a hard time trying to get used to it. However, by visiting the websites the students posted - I learned about what is out there. There are a few well-known social networking websites - that most of the people are on, but it was interesting to see how many other types of social networking sites there are out there. People use social networking websites for different reasons - some to connect with their friends, others to market themselves in the business world. However, everyone uses social networking websites for the same purpose - to make connections with others and to feel a sense of belonging. I also learned about blogging. In the past, I had to blog once a week for my internship and sometimes it was fun while at other times it wasn't. Nevertheless, blogging about the readings for the class, being able to read about other student's understanding of the reading, what they found important - was a good way to learn the material. Not only, was I able to share my thoughts about the reading, but I could learn from the students - because sometimes I may have overlooked something.

So - all in all - my media usage has changed- I've become more aware of and learned about other websites and in addition to the websites i went on when the class first started - i also regularly check twitter and myspace.