Facebook and Identity

            In her book, Alone Together, Sherry Turkle discusses Facebook profiles and id entity construction. She also interviews a young woman who refers to “her Facebook profile as ‘my internet twin’ and ‘the avatar of me’ ”. I definitely know what she means in saying this. You construct your Facebook and it reflects numerous areas of your lifestyle. I can say this about my own profile. Even though it does not catch every detail of my life, it definitely captures the type of person I am in some ways. However, Facebook more so catches you during the spare time in your life. It captures moments of your life when you are out with friends, at big events and just having fun while hanging out with friends. It does show a true side to your life, but not every side. Like I’ve said I feel as if it shows more of the fun and laid back parts of you life. I know for a fact that my Facebook doesn’t show me in a serious light. It may show me out with friends and me on vacations but it doesn’t show anyone that I am going to graduating college with two great internships under my belt and how involved I was on campus throughout my four years at Sacred Heart.

            I am the same as my Facebook profile in the aspects of my appearance, I look the same on there as I do in person, and also the information I’ve provided for people to see. I am a 21-year-old male from Pompton Lakes, NJ going to school at Sacred Heart University and my birthday is April 22,1990. Also, it shows what kind of music I like and who my friends are. However, it does not show me when I am being serious. If you look on my Facebook you would assume I am always out having fun and hanging out with my friends. Although I do enjoy those things I do go to class, go to work and do my school work throughout the week as well.

            Besides from the obvious things, you also wouldn’t exactly know that I am from an upper-middle social class but I was still raised by a single mom. You also wouldn’t be able to tell all of my nationalities. I mean someone could look at my profile picture and see a tall, blonde haired, blue-eyed male and say “Oh wow, he looks really Dutch”. However, they wouldn’t know that I am also English, German and Native American.

            Getting more specific, Facebook still shows even less that you originally thought. Yes you can see I have friends and I was an athlete throughout high school and somewhat into college. But there is not anything showing my aspects of being a son and a scholar. Yes, I obviously go to college as you can see on my profile. But someone doesn’t follow me into a classroom with a camera and take pictures of me while I take notes in class like they do when I go to a bar to celebrate my friend’s birthday.

            I often get very mad when people say that employers look at your Facebook because I do not feel as if that is right. Presently, when I look at my Facebook I see a kid who has having fun while he still could, not someone who just screwed around while he was in college. I want my ideal Facebook profile to say just what mine does about me now.  I feel like my Facebook shows that I am a very fun and outgoing person. If people want to know what I am like on a professional level than I’ll let them look at my resume, not my Facebook. 

Cyberbullying in Schools

Schools (K-12) should definitely have very strict rules and punishments for inappropriate social media use, such as cyberbullying. It is something that is completely inappropriate and one of the worst kind of bullying. Cyberbullying allows people to say things that they do not have the courage to ever say to someone’s face. Whether it is because they are to afraid to say it or they know how wrong it is, through cyberbullying it still happens.

My high school had a policy on cyberbullying. I only know this because it was in our handbook. I went to a very small high school where everyone knew each other very well so this problem never really occurred. However, the policy was still there in case they ever had to take action.

I feel as if you are having problems at home then they should be fixed at home. However, if it spills over into schools it will, of course, get a lot worse. I think if this were to happen it is an extra push to fix things at home because if things are not corrected in the household, things will only get worse at school. With this kind of situation you can only take it one step at a time.

            I do not know of the Sacred Heart policy on cyberbullying but I would assume it would involve the same things: taking action, interfering the situation and disciplining those who need to be. I recently spoke to a Residence Assistant about cyberbullying and she gave me an example she had last year on her floor. She said that two female roommates had gotten into a large fight over a boy and the one had moved into a different room. After she moved out, the girl who started the fight continued it on Facebook. The girl would call her ex-roommate a whore and a slut and talked about how many guys the other girl had slept with at SHU, even when this information was false. Although it was not true, it was still being spread on social media sites. When the girl finally went to my friend, the RA, she had to take all the steps in writing the girl up and having her meet with the people higher up than herself. She also had to have a meeting with the girl. The girl who had been doing it denied it and then the RA brought everything up on a computer screen. The girl was written up, put on probation and kicked off campus during the weekends for a month.

            My friend who dealt with this case said that “it sucks” when I asked her how she felt about cyberbullying. She said that she doesn’t see it that often because we are in college and we are older but when it does occur it gets vicious. 

The Privacy of Social Media

Some of the most important privacy issues that I see in terms of social media are that companies can buy your information from social media sites and that everyone can see everything. Granted, it is your own fault for people seeing what you post because you post it. But in terms of companies buying your information, I see that as morally wrong. No one should be able to purchase your personal information from anyone. It would be less wrong if you were more aware of the situation. However, the social media sites hide it in the terms of agreement for applications. Therefore you are not very aware that you are giving the applications the right to sell your personal information. I, personally, did not learn of this until I took this class.

Media companies should not be able to use your personal information to see you products or sell the information to other companies. Sometimes when you look over to the right side of your Facebook page you will see something you’ve been looking to buy for a long time. However, 9 times out of 10, the products you see on the side bar creep people out and make them think twice about what they have on their pages. Countless people have expressed to me the eerie feeling they receive when you say you are interested in soccer and then their side bar offers you links to buy soccer game tickets, memorabilia, etc. It is just strange and, in a sense, inappropriate.

            I am concerned about future employers looking at my social media sites. I am still currently in college and this is when you are supposed to be having fun before you venture out into the real, professional world. It just so happens that our generation loves to document everything we do and then post it on social media sites. I do, however, try to limit what actually gets linked to my profiles. There are always the ones that slip through and end up on the sites for everyone to see though. I firmly believe that employers should not use this as a factor when hiring someone unless they bring that kind of lifestyle into the work place. If someone has done well in everything they have done before apply to their newest job then their social life should not be something that gets in the way of getting hired. However, on the other hand, if someone shows up to an interview with a potential employer smelling like what they drank at the bar the night before and can barely keep their eyes open because they are hung over then they are obviously someone who cannot separate their personal and professional lives.

If I were in the position of hiring someone I would not use their social media sites as a factor when considering employing them. The only way I would every use it is if a situation that I just spoke of arose. I would then look to see if there are pictures of this person out drinking every single night or if we caught them on a bad morning after. However, showing up like that to an interview still puts them at a great disadvantage and at that point I probably wouldn’t even need to look at their social media sites to see what kind of worker they would turn out to be.

            As for children in grades K – 12, I believe that if they are not supposed to be exposed to something than they should not be allowed on sites that allow this to happen. No one should ever friend a teacher of his or hers while still in school. When social media sites became popular I was in high school. All the students had social media pages and many of the teachers did as well. However, we were never allowed to be friends with our teachers until we graduated. I think that is the best way because it avoids us seeing things we should not see while the teachers are still our superiors. It is just like the film we watched one day in class with the teacher’s private life being exposed to her school and her getting in trouble for it. Everyone has their own personal lives and it is up to that person to decide whom they share it with and who they do not share it with.

            I believe that the same goes for professors in college as well. There is no reason why you need to be friends with a superior on a social media site. The only advantage to this would be to more easily ask for help with work. However, if you need help that is what email, office hours and class are for, not Facebook or any other social media site.

Parents should keep tabs on their kids online, despite the kids hating their parents for doing so. The Internet can be a very dangerous place for an innocent person who doesn’t yet know all the in and outs of it. My parents did not really set boundaries for me except for moving the computer out of my room and into the dining room when I began middle school. At the time I did not even view this as a boundary because I still did everything I did on the computer before they moved it. Now I see it as my parents being able to more closely watch what I was doing online. It was very subtle approach to watching me while I was online and I believe that is the same thing I will do when my children reach an age that I want to observe what they are doing. 

Blog Post #8

For our corporate analysis and final project we worked in groups to develop social media campaigns. For our corporate analysis my group and I work on Old Spice and for our final project we work on a social media campaign for The MAX. Working in groups can be a great and annoying thing to do. It is great that you are not responsible for it all on your own. However, depending on the group, the project can become very strenuous. The groups I worked with for these two projects turned out very well. We all split up the work and then collaborated everything to make it flow.

The biggest challenge that was encountered during these projects was time management for sure. Both projects were worked on during a busy time of the semester.  One was close to finals and the other is due during finals week. Everyone is very hectic during this time frame so it very easy to stray away from our due dates and deadlines. Realizing how busy we were going to be during this time our groups split up the work equally between each member of the group. We would all complete our parts and then we would put it all together to finish the project. Other challenges were obviously making sure that everyone was doing an equal amount of work and everyone was able to send their part to each other on time. These were much easier than the time management problem though.

To analyze a corporation’s social media again I would definitely want more face time with my group than we were granted this time around. Granted we dealt with the time frames that were handed but next time I would hope to have more freedom with timing and meetings. I firmly believe we could have gotten a lot more done and we could have done better on everything if we had more face-to-face meetings. I feel, as a group, we would have been able to share more opinions and came up with better ideas for our projects.

If I had to create a social media campaign plan again I would hope for the same things as I just stated for the other project. However, for the campaign plan we did have adequate meeting time within our groups. I wish we had more time in general to make the project better. If we had one extra week to really solidify our plan. The fact that we did not have more time gave us more of a real world feeling though. That is definitely an advantage of the project. The next time I create a campaign I will definitely be more ready to take on the tasks and work faster on everything. Both these projects were definitely great experiences in making these projects and I foresee myself doing more of this in the future. Therefore, I am glad we had to do both in such a speedy manner because it made us think on our feet and work fast.

            For the corporate analysis project I was responsible for Part 1 and Part 2. This was the introduction to our project as well as the communication channel audit. Part 1 allowed me to learn more about our company, Old Spice, and Part 2 allowed me to see all the channels they use to promote themselves though social media outlets. I feel by being responsible for these two parts I learned a lot about the company and got a feel for how they are successful social media channels. My group helped me execute my task by helping me research the company’s social media channels when we met in class. I do not believe they hindered me in anyway because we all did our share for the project and they would have no way to interfere with the parts I had to complete.

            For our final project I was in charge of Part 4, which was the Timeline and Budget for our social media campaign plan. I enjoyed this role because I had to create the whole timeline and budget for our whole project. The group helped me execute my task when, we as a group, came up with our ideas for the plan. We decided all the social media outlets we were going to use for our plan and that allowed me to more efficiently create our timeline and budget. The only disadvantage I had with this project was that I had to wait for other members of our group to send me their final drafts of their parts. I waited on these so I could make sure that we were all still on the same page. They sent this to me a few days earlier so I cannot say that was a disadvantage. I was just ready to do it sooner but I definitely respect everyone’s busy schedules.

            In the future I would definitely use a lot of ideas I have taken away from these two past projects. I think that it would be more effective to work with people I knew better. The groups I was in worked out very well but if I were to work with people I knew on a better level I feel like it would be easier to be on top of each other for deadlines and getting things to each other earlier. However, all in all I feel as if both projects have gone very well. 

Foster's Ozometer

The goal of this campaign is to use social media to determine the best people and places to promote Forster's products and their 'no worries' attitude. They used twitter as their barometer because they felt like it was the most accurate social media outlet to see real time reactions.The target market for this is males that are 18 to 24 years old. The company chose to focus on this group because beer is more commonly drank by males and males would definitely like the 'no worries' attitude. 

The campaign was definitely economical because they used twitter, which is a free social media tool. Besides from paying the Play agency for developing the Ozometer, twitter is free propaganda. The case study stated that the celebrities tweeted to over 100,000 people and it was equivalent to over 150,000 pounds. This was all done online, which seems to have been a very cheap approach. 

Twitter was utilized for this campaign and the WOM connectors were opinion leaders such as the celebrities that were chosen as the most worry free and citizen marketers because of the buzz about Foster's through word of mouth. The ethical considerations of the campaign is that obviously kids under 18 in the UK will see all the buzz about Foster's beer but they are not promoting it for underage kids. 

I would build on this campaign by bringing it even more into the public. I would bring this twitter propaganda off the internet and into a social setting. Having Foster's go to bars and have a "Foster's No Worries" night to promote their product and new 'lifestyle' idea.

To alter the campaign and make it relevant to the US market I would first change the target audience to males from 21 to 25 years of age because of the difference in drinking age in the US. However, I believe Twitter is still the best way to promote this product in the US because, just like the UK, everyone is Twitter crazed these days and it gets so much interaction on a  day to day basis. 

Media Log

Despite my log, I know I am aware that I am addicted to media. I use new media more so than traditional though. We had to do our blogs for the three days of the week I am the busiest though. I wish I could have done it different days so that I could have got the chance to really see how much I use everything. If I were not in class all day and at work my log would have been a lot larger. I am surprised how much I did use media thinking back about how busy I was throughout the days I kept my log.

            I use my phone all day, everyday. On my phone I am constantly multi-tasking by checking my text messages, email, Facebook, Twitter and numerous other things. I am not surprised by the amount I multi-task and I do very well when doing this. Besides from using my phone, I always find myself on at least five different websites when I am on my laptop. Usually while I am doing this I am also doing homework, watching television / listening to music.

            I think if I really had to I could go without the media I use frequently. I have done it in the past when I studied abroad in Ireland. We really didn’t have access to much and I had no phone (which was the hardest part of the trip). But even though I did not enjoy not having access to my everyday media, I got through it and I am sure I could do it again. The hardest thing for me to give up was my cell phone and the easiest thing to give up was television.

            From keeping this log I learned, or should I say realized, is that I am very busy throughout the week. After I finished my log on Thursday it made me think about it more over the weekend. I figured out that I am constantly using media, especially social media.

            Hamlet’s Blackberry by William Powers I learned a lot about connectedness. I really liked the theory of Digital Maximalism. I think my experience relates to Monday’s lecture because, like most of my friends, I feel like we are all ‘hyper connected’. This meaning that we are always heavily connected to the media world and are very heavy on multi-tasking. I believe the reason why people think they are good at multi-tasking nowadays is because it is becoming so much more popular. In 2008, only 16% of the population was considered to be hyper connected. Now in 2010, it was said that 40% of everyone is hyper connected and I know the numbers will just keep getting larger.

Growing Up Online

            When I first went online I was very young. We always had computers in my school since kindergarten but we did not always have the Internet. When I first began going online I used the Internet for homework and assignments. We also had computer classes in elementary school that taught us how to use computers and the Internet. When I was younger I disliked how slow the Internet was, especially when a lot of people were on my school server. It would take forever for the pages to load and to download things.

            Learning how to use the Internet at such an early age definitely helps because the earlier you learn how to use something the easier it is to comprehend and maintain how to use it. Learning so young has made it easier for my generation to use it for our needs. Previous generations before us did not have the Internet so they used libraries and books for all of their research. Although we do still use books as resources, the Internet is definitely our go-to resource for almost all things. Now most people have the Internet on their phones and laptops. It makes it a lot easier to gain knowledge when needing it. It also allows everyone to retrieve the knowledge much faster.

            In terms of Growing Up Online, I found it very interesting that the Internet shifted from being in control by adults to being taken over by the generations underneath them. Young adults, teenagers and children are now in control of the Internet. They make up the largest percentage of usage. The documentary says that they encounter so much media the advertising and media studies work they live in. As a result of this, older generations feel like these generations must be taught through different media outlets. One person in the documentary says, “kids walking into a classroom without media makes them feel like they’re walking into a desert”. I totally agree with that and think the same way.

            The documentary reminded me of my own friends when they spoke about kids no longer reading books and instead they read online summaries and spark notes. That reminded me of my own friends because that is what we always did throughout grade school, especially middle school. Also reminding me of my own friends is when they were talking about how kids use social media to let out anger and problems. Cyber bullying definitely took place in middle school in my school. People used to write on MySpace, their blogs and fight over instant messenger. It made me remember about middle school though when they spoke about people never actually would talk about these problems in person.

            The most disturbing thing within the documentary is when they discussed the people leading different lives online. It is very disturbing that you could think your seeing someone online and not even notice him or her in person because they look completely different. A perfect example of this is the girl in the documentary that was known as the ‘gothic princess’ online. I do not even know what could be done in order to make that aspect of the online experience less disturbing because it really was the girl, she just made herself appear to look completely different and almost unrecognizable. That, itself, is also very disturbing.

            Growing Up Online needs to be changed since the online experience has changed. I think since this documentary has been released a lot has been done about cyber bullying and Internet sex crimes. That being said, I believe that they should now focus more on the online advertisements that leech themselves to social networking pages. Although a lot of times it can be very harmless and informative, I believe that some times it can be more personal and almost seems like your computer and the advertisements are stalking your online experience.