Why am I the way that I am?
To be frank, my relationship with social media is based on bringing awareness to things that I find important. I like to practice maintaining a balance of posts with a serious and academic tone, a humorous tone, and a personal laidback tone. I try to utilize the spread out nature of social media posts to practice these voices. This way if I am hired for a position that includes maintaining social media accounts I can easily convert my writing style to that of their brand.
One of the primary ways I use social media is as a platform to casually reach out to other users and express my thoughts and opinions on contemporary issues. My goal when posting is to get other people to think, and share what they think to create discussion. Being conscious and mindful in one’s actions is so important to the way in which we contribute to society. My Twitter post from March 25 exemplifies this. In today’s society, we are pushed new technology so often for increasingly steeper costs, so it is only natural that we see this screen time as a luxury over human contact. What my Tweet aims to do is bring awareness through my comment and article link to the idea that as technology is chosen over humans as a means of cost-effectiveness human contact is becoming the luxury.
Another post of mine that promotes thinking about one’s actions is from Instagram on February 24. The photo is of trash on a beach in Tofino, a popular weekend getaway for British Columbians (who make up more of my follower base). My caption and photo together prompt people to look around them and consider how both positive and negative actions add up.
With this intent in mind, I also focus on my social media use as being current and progressive. I use my social media accounts to stay on top of the political climate, news stories, and current events; in turn, I share these stories with my friends and followers. Not all of my Facebook posts are public, but the ones I find super important or relevant to everyone I make public. On February 9th I shared a post about Ideafest at UVic. This five-day event showcases speakers from diverse backgrounds to share their current research. Similarly, I shared a post from the group Stop Starbucks Uvic on Facebook. This post hints at my values surrounding capitalism (which I am happy to broadcast to potential employers) and is useful to others because it potentiates awareness to a cause that has a time limit.
The “social” aspect of social media is very important to me. By this, I mean that any deep content I share will always be interwoven with some fun or cute content that makes it easier to get through the day. People have limited attentional resources, if they learn that your account is always cognitively draining then they might be less likely to engage with you. Additionally, cute posts can be quicker and easier to engage with. This increases status on content ranking algorithms for any social media site and thus leads to my meaningful content showing up higher on my followers feeds.
Essentially, I use social media as a tool to engage with more people, spark conversation, and spread thought-provoking content. It allows me to practice difference voices depending on my content’s mood (or mine for that matter). As I try to maintain balance in my personal life, I also strive for this in my posts in terms of humour, fun, and bleak reality.