While being abroad I have learned many things about myself and the world around me. Since the moment I got to Barcelona, one of the first things I noticed was how people do not use their phones as much – specifically when with friends. As a few weeks went by I gave it my best effort to stop using my phone as much, to really only use it when I needed to. I stopped taking it out on meals, on walks, and during my every day life here to try and enjoy the atmosphere while I can. However, the exception comes into play when I want to take an “insta.”

I have never really been a photo person. My friends, eat, sleep, breathe, taking pictures to instagram but it has never been a passion of mine. I would rather take a mental picture than one on my physical phone. I guess I become hypocritical within this post now because I want to talk about and analyze what I have instagrammed since I have been abroad.

Before I came abroad I knew that it was a popular thing to make a specific “abroad instagram.” Basically this instagram is a new profile that you just post any and all pictures you take while abroad to share with your audience. However, I do not have the energy to do that. What I did is a lot easier to analyze and break down.

Starting in Barcelona, I knew I was going to take pictures and post from the most iconic sites. These sites and attractions being La Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, the wine tour I went on with my family, the beach, and many more. Looking back on my “instas” I posted from all of those places. Some were scenery, some were selfies, and some were scenic pictures. I feel that I did this because I figured it was what was expected of me. People I knew who came abroad to Barcelona did all of the same pictures and posts, that I followed in their footsteps. While I was not like my friends who went to these venues just for the instagram, I actually tried to step back and enjoy the places as well. I remember the day we went to Park Guell for the first time we all put on our most insta-worthy outfits. I made sure that the green jacket I was going to wear would match with the benches and other scenic things. I also recall my friends specifically stating “we are not leaving the benches until we all have an instagram.” I think this goes to show the effort, time, and energy it takes to post an instagram while abroad, but every time I think of this I ask myself why? Why do we feel the need to do this? In reality people at home are just scrolling and liking instagrams without even taking a second glance at them, and even with that knowledge in my head I continue to post the most insta-worthy selfies, outfits, and pictures that I have.

Keep in mind that what I just described was just pictures in Barcelona. I would say that my instagram while abroad has been taken up by pictures from places I have traveled. In all of the nine cities I went to, I posted either one or multiple pictures. For example, when I went to Lisbon I posted the first selfie I took there at the Sao Jorge castle. Then the next day in Sintra, Portugal I posted scenic pictures of the Pena Palace. When I went on my AICAP to Madrid through CEA I knew that we were going to be doing a lot of touristy things, but I had my heart set on an instagram rowing the boat in the Retiro Park. As I visited other places like the John Lennon wall in Prague, or went on the London Eye I posted pictures in those places as well, to show my followers and keep them updated on my life in each city. Before going to London, I went out and bought new striped pants to feel more “London.” I made sure to wear those pants on the day we went on the London Eye because I had an instagram in mind. It is almost comical to me that thoughts like those cross my mind, because it truly is not like me. Overall, my instagram feed represents highlights from places I went while abroad and the experiences I had.

The memories I decided to post are going to help me highlight the best times of abroad when I look back on them. I feel that I wont remember the instagram picture in itself, but the memories that went on behind the scenes and the laughs that came with it. An example is when I was in Switzerland and my friend and I went to see “the most beautiful view” in Interlaken where we posted a picture from. However, what my followers do not see in the photo is how we got lost and and ended up on a random highway while trying to get there, but hey, at least we got a good picture out of it. Ultimately, when I look back and remember all of the good times and memories that come with those posts. The posts are just a bullet point in everything I have experienced while abroad, they are just a way to refresh my memory in the years to come.

Below are screenshots of my final instagram feed since being here.

Arielle Charnas began her blog 9 years ago in New York City, and her reasoning behind creating it is that she wanted to impress a boy (relatable, right)? The name of her blog from the beginning is called “Something Navy.” One of the best things that Arielle says that stuck with me in her biography was, “Something Navy, what does it even mean? It’s who I am today which is what is so wild. Those two words represent my entire career, basically my life because after all, that is what blogging is.” This stuck out to me because it represents social media, blogging, and this lifestyle. Your name, your handle, your title, defines you. It is what people use to reference you, you no longer are a person, you are a brand.

Above is one of the first pictures that Arielle ever took of her outfits for the world to see. Her blogging career did not take off until her boyfriend that she created the account to impress broke up with her. The end of this relationship forced her to take her energy and time to dedicate to creating this for herself. And now Arielle is the owner and creator of her own brand that is now sold at Nordstroms. Her first collection sold at Nordstroms drove more than 1 million dollars in less than 24 hours. She so quickly sold out of all of her clothing online, it turned into a competition for consumers to get. She just released her fifth collection and is introducing new pieces like childrens wear.

One of the biggest markers and significant moments of her career, was when she changed all of her instagram handles. Her personal instagram and blog instagram used to both be under the name of somethingnavy. However, when she first created her brand with nordstroms she changed that name to ariellecharnas and created a somethingnavy brand account. This was something that was talked about because it was such a huge change for her. Now her fans and followers weren’t calling her somethingnavy, we began calling her Arielle. I feel that this represents the change of influence and how this instagram handle completely defines the life of a social media influencer.

To analyze and really break down the digital story of somethingnavy makes one realize how influential and honestly difficult her life has been. Being a social media influencer does not just come with benefits of receiving luxury brand clothing, but it has so many downsides. Since day 1, Arielle has been open about her anxiety and depression that comes from social media and the life she lives. On her first blog post sharing her story she says, “here are days where I love what I do more than life itself and there are days where I cry from the pressure, the insecurities and the negativity that surrounds my account and I’m sure many other bloggers accounts.” Arielle is someone who so many girls and women look up to as a leader in a man’s world. However, with fashion and blogging women dominate. Arielle is someone who maintains a family, a relationship, a brand, and a blog all at the same time. According to an article on emeraldinsight they state that social media influencers “The “nobodies” of the past are now the new “somebody’s” demanding the attention of communication professionals who seek continuous engagement with targeted consumers throughout the various channels of the social web.” Arielle is the definition of an influencers story of becoming nothing to something, and her something that she has created is amazing and inspirational.

Not only has Arielle become a success on instagram and in the social media world as an influencer, but her entire family has as well. Her husband, Brandon, now promotes certain brands like Bandier and Jaja Tequila on instagram, right by her side. Her two daughters, Ruby and Esme also have their own instagram that Arielle and Brandon one, but still has more followers than most people do on instagram. With the release of her new children’s clothing line, Arielle is using her ability to influence and brand on as many outlets as possible. She is one of the smartest, best, most influential bloggers I think our society and generation has seen.

Below is the different instagrams between somethingnavy, Arielle, Brandon, and her daughter’s account. Normally on Arielle’s account most of her personal life is represented and shown on her instagram stories. I personally, pay more attention to her instagram stories rather than somethingnavy’s stories.

In class we discuss the honeycomb model and how it represents how users are engaging with social media. The honeycomb model has six different structures; presence, sharing, relationships, identity, reputation, groups, and conversations. This entire model can be used when analyzing and discussing somethingnavy’s success. For example, using the idea of Identity – Arielle has created her identity by revealing herself, revealing things not just about her clothing but about her values and her life. By being open about struggling with depression and anxiety, by sharing that this account was created to impress a boy, makes her more of a human being in the consumers and eyes of the media. Another part of the honeycomb that I feel relates to the somethingnavy team is the idea of groups. This idea says that groups are “the extent to which users are ordered or form communities.” In her social media world, she is not just “somethingnavy” or Arielle. She is her family, she is her husband, she is her children, and she is the community that follows and supports her.

Overall, while her life comes with perks and benefits, it is the values and ideas that her brand was founded on that makes her so popular in our society. It is amazing the things she has done and the empire that she has created that makes her truly inspirational and important on social media.

Works Cited

Charnas, Arielle. “My Story Part One.” Something Navy. February 16, 2018. Accessed March 21, 2019. https://somethingnavy.com/story-part-one/.

Gensler, Sonja, Franziska Völckner, Yuping Liu-Thompkins, and Caroline Wiertz. “Managing Brands in the Social Media Environment.” Journal of Interactive Marketing 24, no. 4 (November 2013): 242-56. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109499681300039X.

Hanlon, Annmarie. “Digital Marketing Models: The Honeycomb Model.” Smart Insights. August 02, 2017. Accessed March 21, 2019. https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/digital-marketing-models-honeycomb-model/.

Kietzmann, Jan H., Kristopher Hermkens, Ian P. McCarthy, and Bruno S. Silvestre. “Social Media? Get Serious! Understanding the Functional Building Blocks of Social Media.” Business Horizons54, no. 3 (May/June 2011): 241-51. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681311000061.

Norman Booth, Julie Ann Matic, (2011) “Mapping and leveraging influencers in social media to shape corporate brand perceptions”, Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 16 Issue: 3, pp.184-191, https://doi.org/10.1108/13563281111156853

Social media has an impact on the way people choose to portray themselves on social media. I for one know that I am affected by this cloud that social media plays in our life. For example, when I am deciding what to instagram I post the picture I feel that I look the best in and the one that I think will get the most likes. This is for a few reasons. Reason number one is that I want people to feel a certain way about me. What I mean is that, especially since being abroad a part of me wants people to look at my accounts and think “wow her pictures are amazing, it looks like she is having the best time ever.” And while that statement is true, it is nice to have confirmation from other people that they feel the same way I do. In a way I am “faking” who I am on social media by posting only the best pictures of myself, but at the same time social media is not a place to vent to and show my weakest moments. I feel that certain apps are used for different purposes on how we portray what we are doing and how we are feeling. As I just said on instagram I post pictures I look the best in from different highlights from that specific activity I am doing. But on snapchat, I am posting more minute by minute pictures and my followers/streaks so the more “real” me. By the “real” me I mean that on snapchat I will send someone a picture of me upset, or a picture of me sitting down while we are out instead of partying on the dance floor.

Not only do I portray myself a certain way on social media for abroad reasons, but I also take into account what we discussed in class about relationships. Portraying yourself in a certain way on social media relates to the formation of relationships because in our generation and society social media is the best way to gain information about someone. For example, if I meet someone new and we follow each other on Instagram I normally go and see if we have any mutual friends. By seeing someone that we have in common I am able to either reach out to that mutual friend or make a connection between them. While this is for any relationship in life, the idea of romantic relationships and social media also plays a role in the topics that we have been discussing. 

I was in a relationship for two years and I do think social media plays a large presence in the development, evolvement, and eventually the termination of a relationship. When a relationship begins in our generation it becomes a big deal to become “insta official” with them and to show to the world that the two of you are together. It is almost laughable that this is a huge step for a relationship when back in the day this never would have existed or even been predicted. As relationships go on you are able to keep your followers invested in your relationship by the amount you post, the things you share of one another, and everything that you do with each other. By doing so, I look at this as one’s way to gain confidence about their relationships through the likes and comments of other people. However, the downside of this is that when relationships end, some people change their social media. They might delete the pictures, change captions, etc. By doing so it is a nonverbal way of telling your followers and social circle of what is going on in your life. 

In the movie we watched during class, it takes the insecurity of relationships to a new level. I found this movie to be relatable in that when you are in a relationship with someone and you are maybe skeptical that they are doing something behind your back the first instinct you have to find out information is to go on social media. The movie represents that by doing this it could make your situation worse and really show your true colors to your significant other and just the world in general.

Overall, what I am trying to say in this post is that we show the highlights of our life on most social media. I truly do not think anyone is the exact same in their everyday life as they are on social media and this is because of a lack of confidence. We live in a world where self-esteem is based off of content from social media sites and likes on a post. Because this is the norm people display incorrect information about themselves and result to lying about who they are, and in extreme cases they truly “catfish” someone else. 

References
Cohen, Marissa T. “Social Media and Relationships.” Psychology Today. December 4, 2018. Accessed March 13, 2019. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-love-the-scientific-take/201812/social-media-and-relationships.

“Identity in a Digital World: A New Chapter in the Social Contract.” World Economic Forum. September 25, 2018. Accessed March 13, 2019. https://www.weforum.org/reports/identity-in-a-digital-world-a-new-chapter-in-the-social-contract.

I have never been a fan of black mirror, but previous to this class the episode we just watched was the only episode I had seen before. I found this episode to be intriguing because it is an easy to follow, but interesting episode that really depicts and almost scares us into seeing what our future could be like.  In this episode the character, Lacie, is addicted to this “social ranking system” that is determined by the people around her. She gets herself confidence and status in life by relying on others around her and the few minute interactions she has. I feel that this represents a future that could be possibly for us. This is because apps like Instagram, Facebook, and snapchat have us rely on likes, and comments from others to gain popularity within the social media community. My friends and I are constantly comparing the amount of followers and likes we get on certain posts, showing that we care a lot about what others think and we base each other off of these numbers. Something else in our current social media world that came to mind when watching this episode was Uber. On Uber we rank the driver and the driver ranks us based on the interaction and behavior that goes on in the car ride. On a smaller scale, the episode basically emphasizes what we currently do on apps like Uber and spread it to an everyday interaction. I do not think we are that close to this kind of future society to the extent that the episode has it. I do think we will stay consumed in our phones as will the next generation, but I do not think that we will ever be openly ranking our interactions with everyone we come across. In certain ways, we do this in our society by being nice to people we want to like us and not as nice to people we do not care for as much, but it is done more secretly rather than openly like in the episode. 

A social ranking system is basically what we see in the episode. It is a system that numerically puts people into a certain social class and they are treated accordingly. In a business insider article that I read, China has begun to rank citizens with a ‘social credit’ system. This article says that “people can be rewarded or punished according to their scores” and “a person’s social scores can move up and down according to their behavior.” That particular statement was seen in this black mirror episode when Lacie has a breakdown in the airport on her way to her ‘friends’ wedding. In another article I read on Future Trends it relates China’s idea to how this can turn our society into a Big Brother world. The article actually brings up the Black Mirror episode and says, China’s plan has created a global discussion and wide-spread criticism, and it’s been feared that it might lead towards a Big Brother world, as described in George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984”, or a future world in which people’s lives are dominated by social ratings as portrayed in Black Mirror’s episode “Nosedive”. Overall, the fact that China is starting this system changed my intial mindset about how our future would never become this. Because China is such a leading innovation country, if this idea goes well for them, it would be very possible that social ranking systems start to play a role in the United States. 

Bibliography

Ma, Alexandra. “China Has Started Ranking Citizens with a Creepy ‘social Credit’ System – Here’s What You Can Do Wrong, and the Embarrassing, Demeaning Ways They Can Punish You.” Business Insider. October 29, 2018. Accessed March 06, 2019. https://www.businessinsider.es/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewards-explained-2018-4?r=US&IR=T.

Mäki-Teeri, Marianna. “Will We Accept Social Ranking Systems?” Future Proof. December 4, 2017. Accessed March 06, 2019. https://www.futuresplatform.com/blog/will-we-accept-social-ranking-systems.

When we were given the opportunity to create our own Wikipedia entry, I was extremely overwhelmed and frightened. This is because when I think of any person, place, thing, object, etc. I just go to wikipedia for the answers. Wikipedia is everything. It knows everything. It has everything. Therefore, I was not sure how I was going to come up with something different and creative to create a post about – let alone submit it for review.

When I started brainstorming ideas I figured it would be easiest to write an entry about someone in my life. At first I was thinking my grandpa, someone who was born in another country and had to create a life for himself here. But then the prompt asked for outside references and if other people were to really care; and honestly, they wouldn’t. So this led me to my next option. To write about my friend who is an aspiring artist. She has created her own business called The Cash Monet and has been featured on numerous websites and articles in blue-prynt, yahoo, and many more. Her business flourishes off of her social media and her new website that she just launched. After gathering my research and being able to actually speak to her about it and get more background information I was excited and eager to write the wikipedia article.

Although I had a great topic idea, actually achieving and creating the wikipedia article was a huge challenge and I still am not sure if I did it correctly. (I will attach the link and pictures below). To begin, wikipedia is not clear with directions. they bring you to a page with a lot of words and bold statements that completely went over my head. I tried to find my way to create an account and as they call it I created my own “talk page.” After creating this I had to start formatting my article. I searched other artists and saw what their pages looked like so I tried my best to mimic that. For example I began with a brief history and who Sydney Steele is as a person and as an artist. And then I went into her line of work and what she plans to do. I wanted to try and add pictures and more of a biography but the coding and the way to format it all was extremely confusing.

After I submitted my article, it immediately bounced back and in bright red letters said that I was referencing or doing something wrong. So unsure of what to do, I just saved it as a PDF and was content with how my formatting came out. Overall, this was a great assignment and new experience into a different social media, but I do not see myself doing this again anytime soon.

This week I have thought about memes in ways I never have before. What I mean by this is I normally look at memes as a way to laugh and relate to others around me. However, through learning about digital activism and the ways people thought about the recent 10 year challenge has opened up my mind to the possibilities and actual issues that memes have on our society.

Digital activism is defined in a scholarly article titled “The Era of Digital Activism” as “the best term to discuss all instances of activism that use digital network infrastructure (1)” For example, in our past we have seen these as a way to campaign for human rights, for upcoming political elections, and other issues that occur in our political war. The issue with digital activism is that a lot of people do not think it is actually doing anything. Below, I have attached two memes that are about the fact that digital activism does not do much for the political world as people think.

The first meme shown above is about the human rights campaign and is also talked about in the scholarly article titled “In defense of slaktivism: The Human Rights Campaign Facebook logo as digital activism (2).” This article fights my statement above and tries to prove memes like this wrong because they defend how the fact that people changed their facebook profile pictures and became more aware of the Human Rights Campaign led to it succeeding. The article states that, “Part of that success is driven by the clear replication of the HRC logo (the red color and the equal signs remain intact in the three examples above) with the inclusion of popular culture examples — examples that are likely to appeal to the audience because of their familiarity.” As the article continues, it talks more about the idea of slacktivism and how these memes may not be as successful as we think.

One of the biggest issues that I learned about through this article was that some people use this popularity of memes to make a political change in a bad way. The article says, “In an ideal world, we would be able to support only those causes that were clearly and overtly good.” Sadly, opinions between people differ and memes and digital activism is used in a negative light and many become offended. However, like most things in life you can look at the situation with the glass half empty or half full.

Another topic that we addressed this week regarded the 10 year Meme Challenge that has recently been a hit on social media. When I first read the article about how this challenge could actually be Facebook’s way of doing facial recognition tests over the years. It was interesting to see that even memes that are supposed to be a funny moment for people to share are now being tested and analyzed as the government and applications invading our privacy even more. It is wild to me that our society is so on edge about all of these things when in my opinion, memes are just here for people to have a good time and relate to each other.

Bibliography

1. Sivitanides, Marco, and Vivek Shah. “The Era of Digital Activism.” Education Special Interest Group of the AITP4, no. 1842 (2011): 1-8. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ebb2/38b876ccfaf461c3b829261936ef0f6fd33d.pdf.Sivitanides, Marco, and Vivek Shah. “The Era of Digital Activism.” Education Special Interest Group of the AITP4, no. 1842 (2011): 1-8. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ebb2/38b876ccfaf461c3b829261936ef0f6fd33d.pdf.
2. Vie, Stephanie. “In Defense of “slacktivism”: The Human Rights Campaign Facebook Logo as Digital Activism.” First Monday 19, no. 4 (April 7, 2017).

Ever since I have discovered what memes were I was immediately attracted and amused by them. On Instagram right now I follow at least 20 meme pages, and I honestly really use instagram to see memes rather than pictures of people that I follow. I am a true believer that memes are something that unites us all. They are ways for us to relate to one another and to know that we are not alone. When I see a meme about anxiety, or struggling with school, it is a sense of comfort to see that other people are going through it as well.

It is hard for me to choose one meme to analyze but I came across one today from the account called nochill (a certified meme account on Instagram).

This account, nochill, is one of my favorite accounts because I find them to be the most relatable. They post memes that I feel any young adult in college can relate to. Whether it is about friends, a love life, school work, or stress this account has it all, which is why I love it so much.

The meme above addresses the fact that people are already having a bad year although it is only (at that time) January 1st. It goes to show that everyone struggles, everyone has hard times, and this meme makes a joke out of that. I am the type of person who looks for humor in more somber situations, so it is not surprising that memes like this catch my interest.

This meme received over 53,000 likes on this page alone but was also posted on numerous other accounts. I could not find other variations of this exact meme where this would have imitated from but there are many memes about the new year and how people are more likely to not change or do anything different. For example see some memes below.

The 2032 meme also stems from the fact that many memes are created around the holidays. A time where people are with family (a little too much) and need memes to be able to relate and find comfort in their family drama. New Year’s especially is overrated as people believe in resolutions and find it as a chance to renew themselves; when in reality no one is doing that. That is why memes like this help us come to terms with reality and the fact that no one is actually sticking to their resolutions/changing as much as they say they are.

The article by WATERCUTTER & GREY ELLIS (2018) titled “What is a Meme?” states that, “If you’re an isolated person looking to feel a sense of belonging, there’s no better way to project that you’re in the know than sharing a meme.” I completely agree with their statement because memes are away to feel connected when you are alone. They are a chance for you to relate to the online world which consists of so many people.

“The creator of memes should win a noble peace prize when you really think about it.” – Jaymi Zimmerman (me)

Part I: My name is Jaymi Zimmerman and I was born on November 12th, 1998 and I am a female. From as long as I can remember I created my first social media account while sitting in an ice skating rink in 2011. I remember asking my mom but not my dad if it was okay, and she said it was fine as long as I only became “friends” with people I knew. I was on an ice skating team at the time so the real reason for making it was because we had a facebook group where we would post upcoming practices, thoughts, and just have a place to speak all at once with one another.

The second social networking site I made for myself was twitter. I made twitter around 2012 and I used it as a way to keep in touch with my favorite pop stars such as Justin Bieber and One Direction. I used to tweet at them at least 100 times a day in hopes that they would notice me, however, they never did. My parents at this point were fine with me making social media accounts because everyone was and I was 13 years old.

Next in my social networking world came instagram. I made my instagram in 2013 and I remember exactly what my first post was. I was out to dinner with my family and made a picture of the bread that the restaurant served us. I am not sure why I thought this was a good post, but it goes to show the evolution that has occurred throughout the years with instagram. I would never post a picture of a loaf of bread now because that is not the “trendy” thing to do. If the bread was really pretty or something different than a normal loaf of bread then I would debate “instastorying” it now.

I am struggling to pinpoint the year I made my snapchat because my parents were definitely not as lenient about me having an account. Because the idea of snapchat was sending pictures intimately to another person. If I had to pick I would say around 2014/2015.

The most current SNS account that I have made in 2018 was LinkedIN. This is because I am beginning to entire the working world and it is a great place to make connections and stay up to date with my peers or opportunities around me.

I currently maintain and frequently use Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Snapchat. My favorite SNS out of these would be Instagram because it is where I post my best pictures and where I follow people that I actually know. I also love memes and it is my favorite place to view and find the best ones.

Part II: My chosen social networking site would be Instagram. Instagram is a place where users can make their accounts public or private and share/exchange images with their followers. On instagram everyone has a news feed where the pictures of the people you follow appear, and have a profile where the pictures you post appear. On instagram people are able to like and comment on your photos. Instagram also has the option to make “stories” which are photos that are up for 24 hours and can be decorated using fonts, gifts, etc.

In my opinion Instagram extended a lot from the SNS that came before it. Instagram is owned by Facebook so therefore there are a lot of similarities between the two of them. The biggest extension that instagram took from Facebook was this idea of instantly sharing pictures with your social circle. However, what Instagram did was make these posts of pictures more intimate and people can really only post up to 10 pictures at a time. Therefore, they enhanced the pictures that people are choosing to post, making them pick the best ones.

Instagram almost made Facebook obsolete when it first was released because it was faster and a better way to see what others were posting. They took away the “status” that people can make on Facebook and just replaced everything with pictures. By doing so, Instagram took the upper hand.

In McLuhan’s Treated of Media Effects he discusses the idea of retrieval. This idea is focused on the fact that some media recovers what was lost in a previous one and make it better. I feel that with Instagram they did this by taking what was lost with Facebook and even twitter by taking away the noise of the words. They just focused on pictures. As I just said before, this idea of having a news feed that only scrolls through pictures of people (who can also add a small or large caption to their photo) makes it more simpler and to the point than other SNS.

Lastly, Instagram is always changing or as McLuhan would call it “reversing.” Instagram marketers and their team are so smart and so aware of what their audience wants that they are always making changes. When they feel that something is becoming outdated they instantly create an app update. Whether they are changing the format of the page, the algorithm that goes into viewing pictures, they are always testing their limits and abilities.

Overall Instagram is the best, smartest, most in line application with our generation and I do not see it disappearing anytime soon!

Do you remember the last time you did not text or just get in touch with someone using your phone? Without even knowing you, I am fairly confident the answer to that is no. This is because our society, especially generation z, is so focused and addicted to social media and the small rectangular device that is attached to us. We cannot go a day without updating our social media circles. We have an urge to post and share almost everything we are doing, but the real question is why? Why are we like this? Is this healthy?

According to an article on ScienceDirect they state that “ambient awareness refers to the awareness social media users develop of their online network in result of being constantly exposed to social information.” What this is saying is that the idea of ambient awareness, is the awareness we have when using applications like Facebook and Twitter. The best way to summarize it is to say that ambient awareness is the technological way of picking up on body language. By communicating through updates on snapchat or a picture on instagram, it is easy for an audience to see what is going on in that persons’ life.

The issue with ambient awareness is that most people are not their true selves on social media applications. People try to put them best selves forward, often causing their followers to get a false read on them. By not being exactly who you say you are it causes an issue in ambient awareness because you are picking up on the wrong signals, and ultimately getting the wrong information about someone. For the most part, and from what I know from being an avid social media user, is that it is easy to pick up on when people are lying. Although I normally try and see who is editing their faces, bodies, etc. it is still my way of identifying false ambient awareness and everyone has their own way of doing that.

Although the “false identity” creates an issue in the world of social media, there are many benefits that come from this idea of ambient awareness. For example, one of the greatest things about social media is that it is the best way to keep in touch with friends in family quickly, easily, and reliably. In my experience, both my grandmothers know how to work their phones and for the most part instagram. Because they are able to follow me and see what I am up too, they are able to pick up and be aware of things going on in my life. They are picking up on the smiles I have, the places I am, and the people I am with. A journal article titled Ambient Awareness to Strengthen the Family Social Network of Older Adults states that, “Situated displays that provide SNS services can assist the integration of older adults to their social network and contribute to enhance asymmetric relations between the older adult and younger relatives.” This is confirming the idea that social media is bringing people closer together through ambient awareness and the ability to keep track of each others lives.

I want to analyze and talk about this tweet in itself and also how Donald Trump is constantly analyzed in the social media world. To begin, just by looking at Donald Trump’s twitter (using ambient awareness) one is able to get information about who he is as a person by never even meeting him. If one were to scroll through his twitter page it is easy to see that he is very opinionated and self-centered (sorry if you disagree), but he clearly has a mind of his own. I feel that I can completely read his personality and understand him through his social media.

Although that same idea can be applied to anyone, I wanted to focus on Trump because he is probably, at least in America, one of the most talked about people on social media. However, in this specific tweet he talks about how easy it is for people to follow what the media does and how influenced we can be by it. Although it is overwhelming to think about the amount of people who are addicted and controlled by the screens of their phones, through tools and ideas like ambient awareness it brings the world of social media to a more interconnected and focused personal network.

Work Cited:

Leonardi, Paul M., and Samantha R. Meyer. “Social Media as Social Lubricant: How Ambient Awareness Eases Knowledge Transfer.” American Behavioral Scientist 59, no. 1 (January 2015): 10–34. doi:10.1177/0002764214540509.

Cornejo, R., Tentori, M. & Favela, J. Comput Supported Coop Work (2013) 22: 309. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-012-9166-2

Levordashka, Ana, and Sonja Utz. “Ambient Awareness: From Random Noise to Digital Closeness in Online Social Networks.” ScienceDirect 60 (July 2016): 147-54. doi:10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.figure2f.

Hi!

My name is Jaymi Zimmerman and I am from Springfield, New Jersey. I go to Syracuse University and I am studying communications and rhetorical studies.

I have only been to this side of the world twice in my life. I was a competitive figure skater for 13 years and competed in Sweden and Milan. However, I was never able to truly learn and explore the cities because I did not have the time. Being in Barcelona so far has been absolutely amazing. The food, the city, the opportunities are all remarkable and everyday gets better than the next.

Another fun fact about me is that I love social media and being on my phone. My favorite application is definitely instagram, but I enjoy Facebook especially now that I am abroad because it is the best way to keep family members up to date on what I am doing.

The theory of 6 degrees of separation definitely plays a role in my life, not only on social media but also in everyday interaction. Since being in Barcelona, I have met people who know people who know people who I know! It is truly crazy to think about how small the world actually is. Through social media however, six degrees of separation occurs because it is a way to follow, meet, and keep track of people who you have maybe never met in person, but find interesting. I follow a lot of counts like that such as fashion influencers or meme accounts and it is a way to connect with them through a platform.

For pictures and another way to follow me on my travels you can follow me on instagram at jaymizimmerman and on twitter at ZimmermanJaymi