AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHY OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Zoë Cumler 12/6/15

CMS 242

What is Autoethnography?

Definition:

As cited in the article by Sarah Wall, “Autoethnographies ‘are highly

personalized accounts that draw upon the experience of the

author/researcher for the purposes of extending sociological

understanding’” (Sparkes, 2000, as cited in Wall, 2006, p. 2).

Purpose

◦ Basically through doing this project, I will be studying my culture through my

own interaction with it. Social media can best be understood through a personal

account of such experiences, and therefore, I plan to demonstrate my own use of

social media to therefore learn more about my culture.

My basic experiences with Social Media◦ What I personally do with social media, and what others do

with social media may be completely differently. Personally, I don’t participate in social media as much as I used to, but do still use it to keep up on what people I know/have known are up to, what events are going on at a certain place, to post pictures of something I really like, to find ideas for cooking, to listen to music, to message a friend really quickly, to see trending news articles, and to watch DIY videos such as fix it yourself or cut your own hair, etc.

◦ It’s basic purpose in my own life could likely be pinned down to a educational function, or a sociability function without having to interact with people I am not that close with.

◦ I rarely do communicate on social media, aside from the communication I send through captions, the rare instant message or comment, the liking feature which allows you to let others know of your interests and also learn of other’s interests, by sending funny pictures or videos to my close friends and family, or by pinning something to keep it organize which communicates to others my interests as well as how I think or participate in certain activities, etc. My communication on social media isn’t necessarily as direct as it is indirect. If others care enough to keep up with my own interests, that is their choice.

Platforms, Messages, and Posts◦ The social media platforms I decide to use the most are ones where I can most

keep track of other people (which is sort of creepy when you think about it, but definitely something all social media users do, amirite?). Otherwise, I use a certain social media platform for snapping a quick and funny picture and sending it to my friends; or if I feel very photo-happy, I may use a few filters and soften the lighting of a photo so that I can show others a view from my perspective that they would not otherwise see or experience; I use another social media if I want to find a video on new ideas for dinner from a page I’ve liked, or to send my aunt in Ohio a message.

◦ When I construct a message, I always try to think of the way I would say it to that particular person (or people) in real life. For example, if I were to send a message to a large group of people about something that was bothering me, I may use a particular tone, wait to respond after a certain amount of time, and always keep in mind who my audience will be, whether intended or not. I try to always account for a message falling into the wrong hands, and in that sense, a lot of messages I send are meant to be universally acceptable while on social media. It is also easy for me to decide whether or not to post something by first reading what I have written from an outsider’s perspective. I think this is really important, but at the same time, finding so many other people in my own social media sites who do not take into consideration everyone who might potentially see that post. This is not something I have always done in the past. I never used to think about all the people who could potentially or eventually see a particular post I had made.

Social Media Messages & Communication◦ The people with whom I choose to communicate with on social media include my

friends, my family, my coworkers, and occasionally mutual friends and family. I will usually communicate with them via social media – in particular Facebook or Instagram – if I already happen to be using one of those particular platforms already, and either send them something from here, or just want to contact them without having to open another application in my phone. These are really the only times I directly communicate with individuals via social media, unless you consider my indirect communication – or rather, the things that my messages or posts communicate to others. My total online communication (or posts and messages) are mostly only about once or twice every week or two.

◦ I try to interpret everything I see and read on the internet with an open mind. Obviously it is to be understood that you cannot necessarily believe everything you see and read on social media, but that there are things that are fact, rather than just false information. That is why it is important to keep an open mind and form judgements and opinions for yourself.

◦ Social media messages, as I sort of said in the previous paragraph, must be taken with a grain of salt. As we have seen this semester, even a direct instant message on Facebook has the potential of being a fake virus that is trying to infect your computer. Or, a person could be hacking someone else’s account, pretending to be another person, and you might accidently disclose information in that social media messages that you might not want anyone else to know. This is not to say that social media messages aren’t efficient and effective when used correctly. They get the job done, but they are still different from traditional messages. I would like to say that social media messages don’t effect me, but like any messages, they have the potential to effect you emotionally, and even eventually mentally.

Effects of Social Media ◦ I would have to say that social media has somewhat altered my

communication in terms of the way my brain now thinks about communication. For example, when you have the ability to edit, hide or delete a post on a social media site, your brain sort of gets used to the idea of being able to edit everything we say or do. I remember when I was in high school, after having said something I didn’t mean to say, or did something embarrassing, I can recall wishing I could delete or hide whatever it was that I had just said or done. I think this is an effect that occurs a lot actually in the digital age, but now I have sort of noticed a reverse effect in my own communication. Now when I am in a situation where I might say something in the heat of things, or do something that I will later regret, I try to spend a little more time thinking my words and actions through before I just come out an say or do it. I’m not sure if this is directly related to the effects of social media communication, but it definitely made me think of this time in my social media timeline.

◦ When I decide which social media to use, I think about what interest or vibe I am currently feeling in that moment and therefore choose the social media that I think would best satisfy those interests. For example, if I feel like taking pictures and looking at other people’s photo editing skills, I go to Instagram. When I was to look at someone to see if they are still in a relationship, I go to Facebook. If I want to watch music videos, I go to YouTube. I mostly choose to use Instagram, because personally, I like the artistic appeal that it brings to the table. It sort of isn’t as centered around sociability as much as it is just seeing a persons life through pictures. I think that is a really cool part of that social media.

◦ My own social network consists of mostly my close friends, family, acquaintances, mutual friends, distant relatives, celebrities, how-to pages and accounts, cooking and art pages, and popular culture pages or accounts like music, movies, artists, and books.

A Personalized Social Media

◦ When I imagine who my social media audience is, I like to think that it is only my family, close friends, acquaintances, and anyone else who I may have approved as my friend. Since my page is private, ideally, this is the only audience of mine which should really be able to see my profile and my posts. However, in this day and age, we all know that this is not the case, and that so many other people that we may not even know, are capable of seeing our social media outlets.

◦ In my day to day, I have to say that while I do not spend too much time creating, writing, uploading photos, etc. on social media, I also use it to see what friends (and even those that I am not friends with) are up to on a day to day basis. It doesn’t so much as shape my day to day communication as it does give me something to do when bored or curious. However, I can’t say that it doesn’t effect my day at all. When I wake up in the morning, I will normally check if anyone has sent me a snapchat, but I don’t always respond to them. However, sometimes when I am with one of my friends in person and they say something like, “Hey, did you see what person X said about person Z on their wall?”, then obviously the conversation has therefore been shaped by social media.

◦ I think it is safe to say that I don’t have too many expectations when it comes to social media. When I think of the internet in general, I think, “anyone from anywhere in the world, at any different point in their lives, could be posting this right now. I think one major expectation that everyone generally has about social media, is that people stay true to who they are in person, and if they don’t, then that makes them odd or suspicious in some way. For example, the show Catfish on MTV shows people who give their whole lives to a person that they are in love with online – a person they have never even met before. Those people expect to be talking to the person they see on a social media site.

Emotions

◦ A lot of the time for me, after having been on social media for a little while, I actually feel more negative.

This is caused by a number of things, but mostly because I feel gross for having gotten so wrapped up in the

meaningless junk of the internet and ended up spending so much time on it. Besides this, there is an

allusiveness that the internet brings, meaning, you don’t know a person’s tone when they are typing it out,

therefore many things are misunderstood. Sometimes, you feel very sucked in to a bunch of over-information

from other people, which also sort of makes you feel better about your life because you realize how awful it

is to overshare where your lives where thousands of people could have access to it. Finally, annoyance could

be another emotion experienced from social media. For instances, I often get very annoyed with all of this

oversharing. I miss the days where you would call your friend up when something was bothering you so that

they could help to make you feel better. Now, we have a ton of people commenting on our woeful statuses,

and its turning us into egotists. The next slide is a great example of someone I am friends with on Facebook.

Her posts get so under my skin, because I can’t imagine how many times a day she has to sit down and write

out a huge update of her day to share with all of her Facebook friends. Here are 6 different posts she made

in one day.

Rules, Editing/Deleting, and Privacy ◦ On social media, there are definitely a number of things you should

not do:

◦ -Complain about anyone specifically

◦ -Upload or tag someone in a picture where your friends look like crap, but you are the only one who looks good

◦ -Don’t harass someone or be overtly creepy towards anyone

◦ -Don’t come across as bigoted, racist, homophobic, or extremist in any way, or you will get an eyeful of endless comments from people arguing about what you’ve said, or arguing with each other over your post.

◦ - Threaten anyone

◦ -Overshare, over-swear, or post anything to scandalous. You never know who might see it one day.

◦ -Post the same thing on each of your social media outlets. If you upload a picture to Facebook, and then the same picture to Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, chances are all of your friends saw it the first time.

◦ -Post anything too obscene

◦ -Lie. Chances are, someone probably knows you are lying and might make aware the person you have lied to.

◦ When it comes to editing and deleting something, I think it is safe to say that we can all admit to having edited or deleted something that didn’t receive any likes or comments, or at least this is the first thing that comes to mind. I might also edit or delete something if it has negative feedback or comments, isn’t appropriate for everyone that might see it, might be insulting to someone, etc.

◦ My privacy settings for all of my social media are set to private, or can only be seen by myself and people I follow or am friends with. I would hate to have anyone I didn’t like or know have access to my photos, posts, tagged pictures, and personal information.

Sharing, Following, Managing Information, Change of Use, and Characterization of social media

◦ The only people I choose to share my information with is the people I trust. However, I try to make it easier on myself by just not sharing anything too personal or revealing on social media so that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Many of the people I share with on social media include family, friends, coworkers, people I went to school with, family friends, mutual friends, etc. These are also the people I choose to follow. However, I do follow pages that peak my interests, like book pages, movie pages, music pages, news pages, DIY pages, etc. I also like to follow celebrities, political, and scientific figures.

◦ Managing social media in a busy lifestyle can be challenging, but is just like maintaining any social interaction in person, however, much less important than the actual person-to-person contact. If you have a minute in the morning to upload, like, share, comment, snap, video tape, etc. . for social media, managing your life with social media is as easy as doing just that. As I said before, it can be sort of a time-suck, so maybe set a limit or some sort of alarm to prevent you from spending too much time on social media than is necessary.

◦ If I had to change something about my use of social media, I would probably give it up completely to avoid overly caring about other people’s lives (other than those most important to me – which really should be maintained in person anyway), and care moreabout myself and making my life the best I can. I think the whole world spends entirely too much time on social media, and something really needs to change before total face-to-face communication goes completely down the toilet. If I had to characterize social, I would say that it is mostly unnecessary, and that we should just go back to basic communication, rather than doing so through a machine. It makes us seem afraid of each other, and has even been proven to make us less social (see the video on the following slide).

I thought this video was great because not only was it hilarious because its true, it

really makes you think about all the stuff you post that would be really strange if you

did it in real life.

Analysis

◦ Recurring topics and Themes:

◦ I think something I sort of bring up a lot is the people who I follow, share with, ‘like’, and what I do, that I really try

not to get too wrapped up in the whole thing (although I have in the past), and that I wish people could realize how

much they are oversharing on social media.

◦ One theme that I notice a lot of is how much I talk about how I don’t use social media very much. While this isn’t

completely true, in my mind, I think when you participate in a certain area (like social media), it is very easy to get

wrapped up in all of the excitement and new ideas, but that you should also try to stay more observational. If you are

going to use social media, use it to observe and interpret other people. Keep in mind that you may not necessarily agree

or like what they are saying, so next time you go to post or like something, remember how others’ posts made you feel.

I find myself to be different from my friends and family in this regard because I don’t really ever post anything (never

on Facebook, but occasionally on Instagram). I think if Facebook, Instagram and other social media sites were used

more as a creative outlet, rather than a place to unload all of your baggage and a place to air out dirty laundry, it would

serve a better purpose and allow us to get back to our basic communicative roots.

◦

Analysis ◦ Exceptional Occurrences, Inclusion and Omission, and Past and Present:

◦ There are exceptions to be made in social media, however. For example, if you are your social media powers for good, rather than for sheer selfish pleasure, than this would could as an exceptional occurrence. One great example of this I have found in my social media experience, is a girl who I am friends with on Facebook. She and I became friends because she was a teller at my bank. This girl is an exception because she almost never posts anything about herself. Almost every day, she will upload a link from a local human society trying to help them find the animals at the shelter homes. I know she has even been successful in helping these people find adoptable animals as well, because she has even posted a couple of success stories. This, and other similar instances are great examples of exceptional occurrences of the use of social media.

◦ In cases of inclusion and omission, we choose to include things that are most important to us, or that stand out the most in the story. That is why social media can be a difficult thing for information reception because it is not always the correct information. For example, one person’s story might look completely different from another’s, simply because the two probably find different things to be important, and therefore, may or may not include or omit certain information. One really great example I read about omission in social media, is when a company or celebrity endorses a product or drug, but fail to include the risk and warning information. The FDA in particular has been known to get people into trouble by shedding light on a company or individual's ability to include specific health and risk information with a products endorsement. This can be a serious offense, sometimes considered to be “libel by omission”. It is almost the same thing, on social media, when a person takes a deceiving picture of themselves, or make themselves out to be something they are not by including or omitting certain information about themselves. This is also lying, one rule that you should not break on social media. Its like when a store advertises a huge 50% off poster in the front of the store, but puts in really small letters “when you buy something of equal or lesser value”.

◦ We can see that the past and the present appear starkly different from one another. In the year 2015, life is now almost entirely different from what I remember it as in the late 90s and early 2000s. We are a different country, and therefore a different society. I can’t help but repeat throughout my presentation that I wish we lived in simpler times once again. I miss old fashioned landlines and answering machines; I miss snail mail and the physicality of things rather than the digitization of things on the internet; I miss when little kids had no use for cellphones and Facebook accounts, but just worried about being a kid. One thing I have noticed lately that is really strange to me, is that no one is capable of talking on the phone anymore. When I call my friends that I haven’t seen in awhile, most of the time there will be no answer. However, a few seconds after I have hung up, I will get a text message, “what’s up?”. These are people I have been friends with my whole life, but they would rather text than talk, even if they are in a situation where they can do so.

Relationships with others

◦ I feel as though my relationships with other people are stronger because I don’t participate in social media as

much as the average human. When you spend more time with people in a face-to-face atmosphere, bonds are

deeper, connections stronger, emotions more meaningful, and conversations less distracted. It is so important

to have strong basic communication before anything else. And yeah, while social media is such a cool thing to

us because it is so new and advanced, we will eventually reach a time where these things aren’t as cool to us

anymore, and we will find our relationships and ability to interact with one another to be greatly diminished

(or at least that is what I am afraid of). We are now more inverted than ever; we are more awkward, as well as

less social in general – all because of the internet. Our relationships with ourselves appear to be dwindling as

well since we no longer are comfortable have time to be alone with just ourselves. Instead, we need to replace

comfortable moments alone with time on our cell phones, tablets, and devices. As a result, this causes our

relationships with others to go up in flames as well.