Project 3 Post Write

Group projects have always been extremely daunting, and exhausting to me.  I am a full time student with a full course load and a full schedule between juggling school and my part time job.  When group projects are assigned, I often cringe.  They usually mean traveling to school on days without classes after a long morning at work, or staying late on campus after my classes to meet up with group members.  This often means I need to use more gas and lose more sleep.  Living off campus adds travel time into the mix.  Group projects also mean I pick up the slack of my group members, which seems to happen every time.

I feel like I lucked out with my team members this time around.  We worked well together and our schedules seemed to coincide for the most part.  The biggest problem we came across here was time management.  We had so little time to meet up between the project being assigned and due that we stressed about getting all of the work done.  We were able to pull it together at the last second.  Thankfully, each of us live in state, and were not traveling out of state for Thanksgiving, because there would be no way we would have finished this in time.

The biggest problem we ran into was lack of instruction.  We were unsure of how to do certain tasks, and hoped for the best with the path we chose.  Other than this, our group worked in perfect harmony and we were able to pull our project together completely before the official due date.

Project 2 Post Write

I mostly enjoyed doing the Social Media Bundle project.  The lack of guidelines made it a little tricky as I was not sure exactly what I should be doing, but I eventually figured it out.  I created a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and also a board on Pinterest and an account with Del.ic.ious.

My Facebook page was pretty standard, I created a business called Social Media Damages and posted links to articles about social media addiction and a quiz to see how addicted you are.  While I was not able to gain much of a following in the duration of the project, I really feel as though I grasped the concept of the project and displayed that here.

My Twitter account was a little harder to manage because I have never used Twitter before.  I played around with the settings for a while, and used other people’s pages to get the gist of what to post and in what context.  Once I got the hang of Twitter, I posted my own thoughts, and links to other sites, just like my Facebook account.  I really wish I had more time to explore Twitter, as I feel like I lost a lot of time learning how to use the site.  Regardless, I feel as though I made my point to my followers despite the time restrain.

I really enjoyed Pinterest.  I created a board and called it distractions from social media.  To relay my point here, I pinned up all sorts of activities we could fill our time with if we would just get off the computer or cell phone and get outside.  I am especially proud of my work on Pinterest because I feel as though users could log on and be inspired by my posts, and go outside and do those activities.  Lastly, I created a del.ic.ious account.  Here, I posted a compilation of links that taught me about social media addiction, in hopes that my followers would learn the same hard lessons.  This was probably the hardest account to manage because I had never even heard of the website, let alone use it.  But, I did my best to figure out the site and relay a message to my followers in the time that we had to do the project.

The toughest part of this project was learning three new networking sites while maintaining four different accounts for a specific purpose.  I try really hard not to use social networks during the semester because of the distraction they present, so this was totally new for me.  The challenge was buckling down into the site and not getting distracted to finish the task at hand.  Despite the challenges I faced, I am proud of the end product I created and really feel as though I could publicize a topic through social media in my future if the need arose.

group project assignment 1

For this assignment, my group and I chose to analyze blogger.com.  It was my responsibility to discuss the ethos and contrast of the webpage.  In comparison to wordpress.com, blogger is extremely plain, boring, and clean.  There is a lot of white space.  The log in box is quite large with a grayish background, and several tiny colored icons.  The rest of the page has a few words written in plain black text, and that is all the homepage has to offer the user.  While the icons use color, they are way too small and the color is understated.  The log in box, the icons, and the text could all be made larger, less plain, and more noticeable to make the webpage more exciting.  The space is not used wisely, and the page has a very poor design.  IT makes me think of a hospital or nursing home…. Clean, sterilized, boring, offering no excitement whatsoever.  The page also offers no ethos.  The maker, the amount of users, and what the user gets once logging in is not noted at all.  This page has an awful rhetorical design.

Screen Recording URL, YouTube

Project 2 Memo

MEMO

TO: Timothy Amidon, Professor of Writing and Rhetoric, Supervisor of Social Media Bundle

FROM: Morgan Kubacki, Student of Communication and Writing and Rhetoric, Researcher/Publicist of Social Media and Communication Apprehension

DATE: 9 October 2012

SUBJECT: Progress Report, Social Media Bundle Project

This progress report update is to inform you about my most recent progress on the social media bundle project.  My job is to publicize the research that is informing social media users all about the damages that social media may have, and I plan to do so through four social networking sites.

Through extensive research, I have found that my most successful way to reach my target audience will be through Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.  I realize that I need to choose one more social networking site still, but I feel as though this needs some more backing before such information is released.  I have decided to name by bundle SMD, or Social Media Dangers.  I like this title because it will catch the users of social media by telling them that their hobby might damage something.  Once they open up the profile, they will have access to the “about me” section, where I tell them all about the damaging effects of social media, like how it may make us more communication apprehensive.  That being said, once they click to the main feed from the home page, they will be bombarded with a bunch of posts with information about the damaging effects of social media.  My thought process here is that once they are given this information, they’ll be hooked.  Because social media is such a big part of their lives, they’ll start to fear what will happen to their social skills if they continue to overuse social media.  After that, they’ll pass the page onto their friends, and the whole world will begin to see the damages of social media.

Too many people do not realize the damaging side effects of social media.  Our social skills are delicate and need to be taken seriously.  If we spend our days on social media instead of communicating face to face, we could permanently diminish our social skills.

The reason I decided to use Pinterest as my third social networking site is because of its setup.  People who are also interested in social media’s side effects will come into contact with my page, and may link it up to their own for their friends to see.  Soon enough, it will travel around the network for all to see, bringing light to the damages of social media.

It will be my pleasure to discuss any concerns or questions you may have regarding my topic at your convenience.  I do feel that this is the best way to go, but extra opinions always help to shape the outcome of our projects.

Thank you,

Morgan Kubacki

Publicist

project 2 brainstorming activity

National Communication Association

 

1. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
2. I have seen many articles written by the NCA about safety in social media, and Facebook was the most mentioned one.
3. The NCA and the ICA both use Facebook to self-promote and hook in audiences that are interested in what they are saying.  They both speak of current events inside their organization, and publish books pertaining to the subject matter.
4. Many of their Facebook posts are self-promoting, speaking about their organization, and currently there are some political posts mixed in.
5. I believe that their target audience is communication students, people looking for jobs in social media, people interested in political, and all users of social media.  The website gives off a professional feel to it.  The organization also publishes communication journals/

 

International Communication Association

 

1. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
2. All three of these social media sites are linked up to their website’s home page, making me think that they equally are active in all three.
3. The NCA and the ICA both use Facebook to self-promote and hook in audiences that are interested in what they are saying.  They both speak of current events inside their organization, and publish books pertaining to the subject matter.
4. Their Facebook posts mainly talk about the current events happening with the ICA.  For instance, they are accepting papers for an event, and one post told the readers the final submission date.  Another gave the prices to attend a conference.  Another they talk about is registering for new memberships and renewing expired memberships.
5. Much like the NCA, the ICA targets audiences interested in jobs in the field of communication.  They write many books that can be used in the collegiate communication discipline, like social theories.

 

Social Media Organizations (SMinOrgs)

 

1. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, SlideShare, YouTube, Ning
2. SMinOrgs talks about how social media can be used for businesses, like using it for human resources purposes.  They talk about how LinkedIn can be used in their home page.
3. This organization uses Facebook differently than the other two organizations I listed.  Instead of self-promoting, they instead speak of different current events in the realm of social media.  They talk abou things happening in Tumblr. Twitter, and more.
4. On LinkedIn, they talk about how to become organized on social media sites.
5. I think their target audience is businesses in the communication field and students and adults looking for jobs in the communication field.

 

 

 

activist blog post-write

After creating my first blog and posting my first few blogging experiences, I am not completely sold on the idea of blogging.  I love to write, and I love to research, so turning what I could write a five-page paper on into twelve interesting blog posts definitely presented its challenge.  That being said, it was difficult to incorporate my research into the blog posts I was writing because I was unsure how to cite my sources.  Nonetheless, I tried to appeal to my readers.  I made my topic as interesting as I could, and applied the detriments of the media to all who use media.  Perhaps with another topic my experience would have been better, but just the same I am not totally sold on blogging.

I feel as though my greatest strength was my use of language.  I really feel as though I was able to make my topic as interesting as I could and explained information to the point where it was readable for anyone.  As a media student, I take pride in my blog.  My topic applies to all users of media, and I can only hope that they can relate to my blog through my language choices and the voice I chose to write my blog in.

The biggest limitation of my blog was the research.  For much of my research, I had a hard time citing my sources and thus was in fear of plagiarizing.  Trying to rise above my limitation, I included as much relative and interesting information I found and cited my resources using parenthetical in-text citations.  Being a research based topic and blog, I had to include research the only way I knew how.

I plan to add a thirteenth blog post, which will be my bibliography.   As for the other ten, I plan to relate my topic to as many media users as possible, and tell them about the dangers of using social media too much.  I myself am an avid social media user,  so I’d like to appeal to others like me who might be suffering from overuse.  In these ten blog posts, I plan to make it clear how dangerous social media can be to our social skills.  I believe that making the information as relative to my audience and making it interesting will help show more people the dangers of using too much social media

social bundle project annotated bibliography

Arseleault, J.M., Orr, E.S., Orr, R.R., Ross, C., Simmering, M.G., & Sisic, M. (2009). The influence of shyness on the use of Facebook in an Undergraduate sample. CyberPsychology and Behavior, 12, 337-340. This article, which was peer reviewed, surveys and experiments were done testing undergraduate’s use of Facebook.  They looked for a correlation between how shy a person is, the amount of time they spend on the networking space, the amount of friends they have on the site, and their attitudes toward the site.  This relates to the research question because it shows a correlation between being shy and using the Internet for networking.  The authors of the article used charts, graphs, and detailed examples to portray their work, which I feel will be very helpful in the later stages of the assignment.

This article increased my appreciation for these authors because they chose to focus on college undergrads for their sample.  We see so many different kinds of people on campus and never really get to know any of them.  Through this article, its research and sampling, I found out that there is a lot to be known about our peers on campus.

Birchmeier, Z.P., & Sheeks, M.S. (2007). Shyness, sociability, and the use of computer-mediated communication in relationship development. CyberPsychology and Behavior, 10, 64-70. This peer reviewed, scholarly article shows and explains an experiment done measuring a person’s shyness, sociability, closeness to others, computer usage, and true self experiment. This article is relevant to the topic as it measures a person’s ability to open up in an electronic communication situation when they may be too shy to do so face to face.  As the authors used graphs and details to explain their experiment, I found this article extremely helpful and believe it will be useful as I write the paper.

The research explained in this article was phenomenal.  It really showed a correlation between shy individuals and increased use of social networking sites versus non-shy people and their decreased use of social networking sites.  Through a lot of research, testing, and sampling, the authors stumbled upon some groundbreaking information.

Ebling-White, S., Frank, M.L., & Lester, D. (2007). Shyness, Internet use and personality. CyberPsychology and Behavior, 10, 713-716. This is a peer reviewed journal article showed experiments and surveys trying to find a correlation between how shy a person is and how much they use the Internet. This article is relative to my research question as it shows that people who tend to be more intimidated of face-to-face communication rely on the Internet.  The authors really did a great job in making their work easy to follow and easy to understand, so I believe that this article will be very useful.

The authors of this article do a wonderful job explaining the relationship between a shy person and their computer.  Relating to my topic, I can use their research results to help my audience understand the detriments of social networking.

Lavin, M.J., & Yuen, N.C. (2004). Internet dependence in the collegiate population: the role of shyness. CyberPsychology and Behavior, 7, 379-383. This scholarly article explained how a lot of college students depend on the Internet for a primary communication device, as they are too shy to be in a face-to-face communication setting.  The article also explained how much students used networking sites, email, instant messaging. This relates to my question as it shows how much shy people rely on the Internet to communicate as face-to-face communication is too intimidating.

I really liked this article because of the organization of the information.  It gave a breakdown of the time spent online and the activities, and what kind of users were logged on.  The authors found some really solid information through sampling and running their own tests.

podcasts

Guest: What is social networking?

 

Me: Social networking is a way to communicate over the Internet.  Using a social networking site, we can keep up with friends, share and comment on photos, meet new people, communicate with one another, video chat, instant message, and so much more.

 

Guest: Are there a lot of social networking sites? What are some examples of them? Do you use any?

 

Me: There are lots of social networking sites, and each is used a bit differently.  Some examples include Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Pinterest, MySpace, Instagram, and so on.  I do communicate with friends over Facebook, as it is easy to keep up with them and is sometimes the easiest way to communicate with them when they’re far away.

 

Guest: How is communicating different through social networking sites, and why is it easier?

 

Me: Fact of the matter is, communicating over social networking sites is much different than communicating face to face, and is often more convenient.   It is more convenient because you do not have to be in the same room as the person you’re communicating with, you just both have to be logged on at the same time.  When they are not online, you can still view their photos and see what they’ve posted to find out what’s new.  As for easier, some people find it much simpler to communicate over a medium than face to face with another person.  A communication apprehensive person, or someone who is unsure how to act or is uncomfortable in social situations may find it easier because of the reduced cues environment.  This means that there are no non-verbal signals, you are not looking someone in the face and they are not looking at you, there is no need to worry about stuttering or speech impediments, and there are no other people around watching you speak with another person.  So, people who may be communication or apprehensive may prefer to communicate over a medium for these and other reasons, just like people without communication apprehension.

Six ideas for activist blog posts

Idea 1: What is considered social media? How many people use it? How much time are people on it in a given time period?

Idea 2: What kind of people use social media? Middle schoolers, high schoolers, college students, young adults, mid-lifers, popular people, loners, researchers, marketers, people who love to take/look at/comment on pictures.

Idea 3: How do I plan to look into the correlation between social media and social apprehension?

Idea 4: What behaviors does social apprehension include?

Idea 5: Communication apprehension gene and social media

Idea 6: limitations of my study, study results, descriptions, charts, graphs, etc.