The Role of Social Media In My Life, As A Social Media Manager
Like the title suggests, I'm a social media manager. While I do have other parts of my job, a large part of it is being on socials and scrolling the feed. I'm also an avid social media user on my own time. Like I did on Twitter, I love to fire off all thoughts in my head on Bluesky, my new home.
However, what happens if you have an addiction to screens? A scrolling addiction? I have both of those and it's been really impacting my life. It's not even really doomscrolling, I just love to be on my phone any time I get. It's scary to see my screen time every week on Sunday because it's so high. Are other people's screen time that high?
I do like parts of my job, but I feel like I would be better off as someone who didn't have to do socials for a living. Like, maybe it's better if I work maybe in email marketing or a completely different field. But pivoting to a different area for work is tough, I've done it before. So should I just stay in my current field but try to find a new job, maybe one with less social media and more general marketing?
I've tried limiting my screen time with the Apple built in limits, but it's not enough. I catch myself adding additional time every time I go over the allotted amount. I am scrolling in bed and messaging friends when I should be focusing on the time I have with my partner. I don't even realize when I'm doing it until he tells me. The addiction is real and it scares me.
I feel like maybe I should just literally lock my phone up so I can't use it in the evening/night, because that would literally solve a lot of the scrolling issues (I use it a lot at night). I'm going to try that and keep myself to it. I'll put it in my nightstand and only plug it in when I am going to bed.
Anyway, this was just a vent post I wanted to make. It's top of mind right now. Goodnight, friends.
Welcome to New York... it's been waiting for you 🎶
First trip of the year was to New York! Nick had an offsite work trip and I tagged along because I've always wanted to go to NYC. All my favorite shows and movies reference it or take place in New York. So off we went!
It was an early flight both there and back. I'm not meant to get up at 4AM, let me tell you. Also, there was a government shutdown which meant TSA agents weren't getting paid which impacted airports. Thankfully, with TSA Pre-Check we were able to get to our gate in time for boarding. The flight there was 5 hours and the flight back was 6 hours... probably one of the longer flights I've been on (that I remember). But we made it and arrived at JFK!
After landing we just got to the hotel and unpacked before grabbing some dinner. Near our hotel was this burger place called Skinny Louie and it ended up being the most amazing smashburger place ever. Voted best burger in Miami AND New York!
For the next 3 days (Tuesday to Thursday) I went to Nick's office since he had the offsite for work. Luckily it was only a 12-ish minute walk from our hotel! Very cool office and it made me reminisce about my time working in big tech. The food was decent but I'll take free food, snacks, and drinks!
They also had really nice bathrooms and amenities in the New York office. I took lots of outfit of the day photos in the all gender bathroom. Don't mind that I do the same pose in every single photo I take, it's the inner millennial...
There's lots of great food in New York. I mainly stayed in Manhattan during my trip but everything I ate was so tasty! Here are just some of the foods I tried, like Joe's Pizza (pizza time) and a traditional lox bagel. Apparently the dough in New York is really good because of the tap water they use? I could taste the difference!
The tacos above were from Los Tacos No. 1 and they truly are number one. My favorite food is tacos and they have to have the best tacos I've had. I tried both their adobada and asada tacos but I preferred adobada!
Some more meals, the sushi was from Sugarfish which is a restaurant I've always wanted to try since all the influencers I watch eat there when they want sushi! It was really good and it came with a lot of other stuff I wasn't expecting (like tuna sashimi, edamame, and a bunch of sauces/extras like green onion, lemon, etc). This was the night Nick had his work dinner, so I grabbed dinner on my own and ate while (re)watching some Gossip Girl.
The bagel was from another place near our hotel that did breakfast food. The bagel breakfast sandwich was quite delicious but the iced latte was a bit watery. I think I'm just spoiled since I live in coffee central (Seattle).
More delicious food! Pad See Ew was lunch from the day we did so much shopping, so it was super filling and delicious! They also gave us a free salad which was so good that I' am'm still thinking about it. It had like a passionfruit ginger dressing which was refreshing!
The chicken shawarma was from a halal cart in the general vicinity of our hotel for dinner. Nick's been craving this kind of chicken shawarma ever since he tried it for the first time in Toronto, and he said this one really hit. It's the spicy sauce that's missing from most shawarma/Greek places near me, I think.
There were a lot of great bookstores to visit in NYC. We went to a couple different ones, like Kinokuniya, The Strand, and the 4-story Barnes & Noble! As a bookworm it was like heaven getting to walk around and look at all the different books. I bought a total of 4 books on this trip.
Yes, we did do some touristy things! Of course we visited the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). Getting to see Starry Night in person was quite an experience. Nick just kept staring at it being like "wow..." and it was cool for me to recognize a lot of the artworks because I took a lot of art/art history courses in high school and university.
As a Gossip Girl fan, I had to visit The Met steps and take a photo like how Blair and Serena would sit on the steps when they attended Constance! Also went to Grand Central Station which is in the first shot of the pilot episode.
We also went to the only official Nintendo store in the US, Nintendo New York! We went a little crazy here, not going to lie... don't ask me how much we spent here. But we got a lot of cute things, and some were souvenirs for other people, okay!
We also went to Central Park and walked the entire length of it, which was a lot of walking! You can see the photo of the skyline I took in the first photo of this blog post. My legs and feet were so tired after each day because we would walk to most places but I liked how everything was walkable. Shoutout to walkable cities!
Anyway, here's some of the things I got from my trip. I did get 2 other books and a Manhattan magnet, but I just didn't take a photo of it with everything else. There's also more stuff that Nick and I got for the both of us, and souvenirs for others. My favorite has to be the Strand crewneck!
Anyway, thanks for reading! Ending off the post with a photo of Nick and I while we were outside the library, and the sunset we caught while waiting to board our plane back to Seattle.
I'm going to try and write more blog posts since there's so many photos I take and want to post, but I don't want to spam everyone on Bluesky! My blog is still a work in progress, but I wanted to write my thoughts before I forgot them. New York, you were amazing!
My boyfriend Nick came to Toronto to visit me on February 27! So we’ve been going to a bunch of different places. Today, we went downtown with my best friends Alicia and Thomas. We met them at the bus stop and bussed all the way to Little Piggy’s for Korean Barbeque. As a Korean, I’ve had the privilege of being able to eat all the Korean food every day for twenty three years (thanks mom!). I rarely go out to eat Korean food and are usually craving a different type of cuisine, usually Japanese. But I had never eaten KBBQ outside of my house, and wanted to experience grilling the meat myself.
The place was pretty much empty when we got there, but it got busier over time. We ordered 4 kinds of pork and got the combos, which included rice and some soybean paste stew (된장찌개), the Korean equivalent to miso soup. Alicia also ordered tteokbokki (떡볶이) with ramen noodles in it. The food was delicious! If I had to say one complaint, it would be the table they gave us was too small. There were so many side dishes and plates on the table that there was barely any space for anything else.
After we filled our bellies, we went to Snakes & Lattes, a board game cafe. Nick had never been to one before, so I was really excited to take him here! We ordered some drinks and played four board games in total. The first one we played was Telestrations After Dark, the game that’s like telephone but with drawing involved. It was hilarious! None of us are great doodlers, so it was fun to see how our drawings were interpreted. We also played Cranium too, with Nick & I vs Alicia & Thomas. We also played Taboo! Cranium and Taboo are such classic board games.
Then came the one game that took the most amount of time to set up and learn... Settlers of Catan! I assumed that Alicia already knew how the game worked because she plays it with her boyfriend’s family, but I guess she forgot how to play it. We went over the rules and tried a round of the game... and I won! The thing is, I won because I unknowingly bent one of the rules. We played a second round with the proper rules and Nick won! We are the master settlers of Catan~ I see why everyone loves this board game so much. Takes a while to learn, but it’s worth it!
Today, I watched a movie all on my own! I’ve realized in the past that the only times I’ve ever watched a movie were with either my friends or my boyfriend. It’s kind of like eating a meal alone at a restaurant? There’s not exactly a stigma around it, but it isn’t normalized. I decided to change that today!
Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse has been the one movie I’ve been dying to watch since it came out. The problem was, I didn’t have anyone to watch it with! My friends had either already watched it with their other friends or didn’t seem all that interested in watching it with me. I could have watched the movie with my boyfriend when he came to visit me on the 28th (we’re long distance right now) but I really wanted to watch it on this day... so I did!
I took the bus to the movie theatre after work and bought my ticket at those ticket machines at the front. Side note: I love to use ticket machines! I wish everywhere had them because it means one less interaction. I actually came a little too early for the movie, so I had to wait for the theatre employees to finish cleaning up the theatre before I could go into the theatre and settle in.
When they finally let me go inside, I found that I was the only person in the theatre. I knew that Spiderman had been out for two-ish months already, but I didn’t think the theatre would actually be this empty. I thought more people would walk in during the trailers, but no one ever did. It was just me, all alone in that empty theatre. Also a first!
Onto the actual movie review: It was AMAZING! The animation was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and I’ve watched a lot of anime and animated movies. They somehow made the entire movie look like a comic book but also had such fluid animation throughout it. As for the music, I’ve already listened to the entire soundtrack on Spotify because my boyfriend said it was a good album. I already liked the soundtrack, but the movie made me appreciate it even more! Now I had scenes to connect to certain songs. I can’t listen to What’s Up Danger without feeling chills because of the scene it’s connected to.
I think I’ll watch more movies by myself now. If you’ve always wanted to watch a movie by yourself but are too scared to, let me tell you that it’s fine! There’s nothing wrong with wanting to watch a movie on your own. We do it all the time at home on Netflix, right?
