As our world is rapidly evolving with new technologies, there’s a digital divide that is the gap between the people who can make effective use of the digital internet technologies and those who do not. We need to learn about social media literacies and learn internet skills because “access to information is the key to an individual's position in society, though access is not everything; it is only the starting point in many countries and societies as the power structures of society and academia remain” (Radovanoic, 2011). Digital equity is the goal to make certain that everyone have the easy, appropriate and functioning information technology to access at school and elsewhere. This helps the goal for bridging the gap in the digital divide.

For students, the limitation of digital technology access, knowledge, and skills hugely impacts one’s ability to be a active participant in the world. For students who done have access to the internet, students of low income status and of minority rank less in GPA (Gonzales, Calarco, and Lynch, 2018). Moreover, this can delay their interaction with the digital world and learning the skills to interact.

There are many ways to help close the digital divide and provide digital equity such as learning about low cost access to the internet, working in public places with free internet and helping expand access at school. For people who can help the students, they can follow 5 of the insights from Warner’s report: focus on digital literacy, provide computers, remove other financial barriers, provide low rates and partner for success.

Digital Citizenship and Students

Digital citizenship has several interpretation. According to Gleason and Von Gillern, “Digital citizenship is a concept that includes a range of theoretical conceptions, from those that emphasize the technological aspect, while others investigate the affordances of digital media to suggest new forms of citizenship”, while, “Jones and Mitchell (2016) described digital citizenship with a digital literacy foundation that focused on (1) respectful behavior online and (2) online civic engagement” (Xu, Yang, MacLeod, & Zhu, 2018). These are only two of the interpretation for digital citizenship, but the one that’s the oldest and truest is that, “the norms of behavior with regard to technology use” (Ribble et al. ). I believe that this last interpretation is the one that sums up what digital citizenship is. Digital literacy is pretty much the behavior of human and their uses of technology. The different way that they participate determines their digital literacy. 

Digital citizenship can be confuse with digital literacy because they both involves creating content. Digital literacy is a component that refers content creation as defined by the American Library Association’s digital literacy task force where it depends on one’s “ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitives and technical skills”. It’s very similar to digital citizenship because it also includes this, however, it contains the behavior part reaction. People participating in digital citizenship are expressing their opinion on things when they find content, create their own content and share it. It’s more of a reaction to events and problem that are going on.

I believe that digital citizenship can be fostered in adult learner by teaching the them the three dimension of digital citizenship such as (1) Respect Yourself/Respect Others, (2) Educate Yourself/Connect with Others, and (3) Protect Yourself/Protect Others (Ribble and Miller). These three dimension holds value from the golden rule says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” As how we would act in person, we should do the same on the internet. The moral believes that we have and the things that we hold true to us should reflect in our contents, posts, likes, and shares. Adults are fast learner, they would understand this and be able to apply when they are online posting as how they would act determines their digital citizenship. 

I think that educators can help with the younger generation to better be good digital citizenship. I see that children are easily influence to create content and share things with strong opinion and/or little thoughts given due to the popularity in that specific content. Learning the nine elements of digital literacy will help to improve on their behavior online. Also, teaching them morals, ethics, and how their rash and inappropriate behaviors such as ranting when they’re childish can have negative impact.  

Social Media & Participatory Culture

CI 3342 Reflection 1

It was really exciting to read about the “Social Media Use in 2018” and “Social Media, Social Life: teens Reveal Their Experiences”. I took a freshmen seminar with Dr. Angelica Pazurek before and was exposed to the prior findings back in 2012 and how social media impacted teens them. It’s great to have more up to date datas and I’m particularly glad that organization are putting more resources into finding insights on the impact of social media as it does play a big role in today’s society. 

Over the course of the years, many social media platform have gain popularity. Facebook was the most use back in 2012 and, now, SnapChat is working to replace them as the number one use. Nevertheless, with Facebook owning Instagrams, they are always on the top tier. Platforms like PinInterest, LinkedIn and WhatsApp has gain popularity over the year as well. As someone who doesn’t use these apps as much, it’s strikes me as interesting and makes me wonder what I’ve been missing out on as well. 

It was surprising to me that LinkedIn was one of these popular platform considering that people don’t really interact as much and freely as other platform allows. As this is a more professional platform for people to connect with other professional and get hire, I thought that it wouldn’t be that popular or people won’t be on it as much, but I’m wrong. I’ve seen recruiter posting regularly, but that was mainly the post on my timeline. This also makes me wonder what I’m missing out on and proves that I don’t know how to use social media effective, which makes me glad that I’m taking this course to find out more. 

Social media is a double edge sword. It can be of use to you or negatively affect you. As in the study, teens get cyberbullies and few people recovers from it. The hates that come from so many strangers can really negatively impact you and makes you think life is not worth living for. However, social media can do goods if you know how to use it. One can turn their experience into something that shed a light on the topic and empower others as Aija Mayrick did with her experience in her “The Survival Guide to Bullying: Written by a teen”. There’s great potential for social media and the user depending on how it’s used. 

Reflection

What has your experience been like in this course? 

My experience in this course was great. Dr. Angelica Pazurek was an amazing professor who is really helpful. 

What have you enjoyed most or found the most interesting? 

The event where I enjoyed the most was when my classmate and I gather and share their perspective. This gave me insight on how real teenagers think. There was also a research paper where real teenagers students explain how to get around with social media without adults knowing or for relationship purposes. This was the most interesting information because I’m a teens too, yet, i did’t know. 

What have you been challenged by? 

I have been challenged to use new social media platform and been responsible with my time management skills. It was easy to do the assignment when there’s information on how to do it, but after that, I don't know how to navigate really well with the new social media platforms. I also have to keep track of the assignments that are needed to be done.

What suggestions for improvement do you have to help improve this course for future students?

I think that will be to have articles that contain the same topic, but different coverage of it. Some of the readings contained information that overlapped each other, therefore, it was like reading the same thing. 

Blog #3 Linkedin

I believe that social media is becoming a big factor that recruiters are looking at for potential candidates as shown by Kimberlee Morrison that, “Social media has become an almost universally adopted hiring tool, with 92 percent of recruiters surveyed using it as part of their process. 87 percent are using Linkedin, 55 percent are using Facebook, and 47 percent are using Twitter.” Eventually, recruiters will find candidates via social media rather than physical meeting with candidates as it’s easier and faster to get to know someone’s characteristic and personal background that won’t be on resumes as explain by Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer of CareerBuilder, “Tools such as Facebook and Twitter enable employers to get a glimpse of who candidates are outside the confines of a resume or cover letter..And with more and more people using social media, it’s not unusual to see the usage for recruitment to grow as well.”

I’m planning to have a career in advertising and marketing so social media is a big influence that will get me into my career choose. My mentors and friends who are already in the field highly recommend me to keep my social media pages professional and appropriate especially Linkedin. They say that recruiters will look at one’s social media before they meet the candidates for a position. Researching about the person you are going to meet is what they call homework.

Linkedin is a good platform to get to know people in professional fields and possibly gain a few connections that will help me build my network in the future. I think that Linkedin will be better in the future because as of right now it’s lacking the features that other social medias have such as it doesn’t refresh or limit the contents on my timeline. I have high hopes for Linkedin though because Microsoft had recently brought Linkedin, therefore, Linkedin will be better. The challenge of Linkedin is that it’s secure someone’s ability to connect with others, so it’s difficult to connect with someone that I know, but don’t have information such as email or phone. Thus, I can’t connect with them until I get the information or lie about how we met. Overall, I like Linkedin.

Social Media’s Impact on relationship

Overall, what are your thoughts about the impact of social media (both web sites and apps) on dating or "romantic" relationships (connections beyond simple friendships)?

Social media is a great tool to communicate very quickly and effectively. I think it all depends on how the person that’s using it for dating or “romantic” relationship. I can't generalize it because it depends on the individual’s choose of how to use social media. If the individual is being loyal and is using social media properly then there’s nothing to be scare of. However, if the individual is doing something inappropriate or against the relationship, then that’s not good. They will blame it on social media since social media will allows these cheating habits to be seen by the public. It will enable people to see what is already there.

How might the identity one creates be projected to others or perceived by others on an online dating site or mobile app? How might sharing this information influence a person's sense of self online? 

Most people only post the best of them such as comparing themselves with popular people. Therefore, they post what their audience likes and this allows them to be more “out there” and increases their likelihood of getting into a dating or “romantic” relationship. So, sharing this information can influence a person to pretend to be like what is describe online because they are not authentic and true to themselves.

According to the Pew Research Center's quiz, what did your results say about you? Have you personally ever used an online dating website or mobile app? If so, what information did you include in your online dating profile? And why did you make the decisions you did about what information to share? 

My result says I’m a light user and I’m skeptical of online datings and mobile apps. Honestly, I have tried to use an app that my guy friend was using called GroupMe simply because I want to check why he likes it so much. I gave it a chance and didn’t share anything other than my name and a picture of me. Yes, I was skeptical and I found out that there were weird people. I didn’t want anything to link up to my life because it was just a test. I deleted it not even after a week.    

Please share any additional thoughts you have about the videos and articles you watched and read this week about identity portrayal, relationships, and social media.

I think it’s hard to portray one’s true self out in social media because individual people are unique so most people take the easy route to do what others do.

Blog #1

The first post will be a reflection on the social impacts of social networks. You will address the following questions: Is social media enhancing or damaging our interpersonal communication skills? Are we becoming dependent on social media? If so, what are the implications-- that is, what does this mean for us or in what ways does it impact us? How do social networks affect our social and interpersonal skills? Is social media actually making us less social? Or more? Can you provide some specific examples? How do you predict social networks will continue to shape our society in the future?

Social networks are sources of communication that is relatively new, but it had clearly impacted our society in many ways. In the last decade, it had caused changes in the way people communicate with each other all around. It had allowed people from all over the world to interact with a click of a button or a touch of their mobile device’s screen faster than ever. It’s like their world is under their fingertip. A world that they can control what and who they can see from friends, family members, co-worker and celebrities. It’s a world that’s not dull unlike their normal life which contain contents that interest them. Sometime, contents of people they wish to be like and even dramas to entertain their life. Social networks had become an escape tool for many people even myself included and I believe it’s damaging our interpersonal communication skills. Everywhere I see are people looking down on their phone in their own little bubble. I believe that a person being on their phone is like a sign that they don’t want to talk to anyone around them or that they don’t know anyone in their surrounding so they resort to social media to entertain them. Also, if anyone wanted to start a conversation with these people they are afraid to interrupt them. Because of this, some people had lost some of the communication skills in face to face interaction. This is how social media has made us less social in real life. We neglect the people that are in front of us and focuses on the ones that have our same mind set on social networks.

We as human beings are getting better at texting than talking to each other. We are so dependent on social networks to interact, it has become something that we depend on more and more because that’s what we focus our time on rather than being active. Therefore, it’s been the only thing that we have when we have free time. This means that people don’t have anything to do if they don’t have social networks to check up on.

I think that social networks will continue to cause more people to use the networks so people would spend less time face to face which will negatively impact our interpersonal communication skills. We wouldn’t set up a time and place to meet to dine and talk. Even less people will have coffee and catch up because they can “stalk” each other on social medias. Also, it takes time and effort to interact to people this way. It’s also dependent and efficient to use social medias so much that we can find things out at a single click. There’s literally no reason for setting meeting and causing any inconvenience.