Introduction to Blog

I guess I could say that my role in media consumption is rather high. I use social media apps such as Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat, and Youtube at least once per day. I spend a lot of time on social media, maybe even too much time on there. And the thing is, I don't notice how much time I've spent until my whole day has been wasted sitting around refreshing my Twitter timeline!

But even though I spend so much time on social media, I feel like I'm not actually consuming anything of substance. I post a couple things about my interests or about my day on Twitter. I post my art when I finish it. I'll watch baking videos on my Instagram explore page. But that's really about it. Despite using these social media sites often, my presence on there is rather nonexistent. I think I'm mostly on social media in order to get away from what is happening in the real world, which is probably not the best idea.

I think rather than media examples and images influence what I want to do rather than who I want to be. For example, I follow a lot of artists on Instagram. Whenever I scroll through my feed, I think to myself "I want to be able to draw like that" or "I want to be able to create something as good as that." I know that I shouldn't compare myself and my art to others, but sometimes i just can't help it. Most of the time it makes me feel terrible about my art, but occasionally this will motivate me to do better.

I feel like the sharing of images, events, and stories has become such a common thing for our society. Most people are getting their news from Facebook and Twitter nowadays. While there are still people who watch the news on cable (like my dad), people mostly find articles online that tell them what's going on in the world. Media consumption in recent years has become so centered on technology and the different forms of social media. For example, I saw images from the Women's March on my Twitter timeline and stories about the march were put together in one of those Twitter moments.

Maybe this is just me not paying attention, but I feel like activists and protests don't get that much coverage on cable news networks. It's like they talk about whatever protest occurred for about 5-10 minutes, then they move on to talking about how terrible the Trump administration is doing. Activists and protesters are given more space on social media though. I feel like this is because that is where most discussions for protest begin. Many people document their experiences in these protests on Twitter or Snapchat because that's how people will see they are participating and working to make a change. Online articles always highlight the the thoughts and experiences of the protestors, and will sometimes include popular, related tweets from the day of the protest. Online media seems to be more willing to embrace these protests, while cable news networks would rather invalidate or make them seem like they're not that big of a deal.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/20/us/womens-march.html