In Buck’s introduction she writes about every time Ronnie wakes up he
lets his friends know that he is awake, she writes that “Rather than leaving a paper note for
them in the kitchen, Ronnie visits their private
group page on Facebook.” I think this is interesting since it says something
about how social media has transformed into something that is “mobile” and a
part of people in today’s society’s life. With the use of iPhones and other
devices it has become more convenient for people to write a message through
their social media page rather than on a note. The chances of more people
seeing the note and take in the message is today higher if you write it on
social media instead of delivering the message in a handwritten form. In the
introduction Buck also writes; “While he often works alone, Ronnie is always
connected to friends on campus and across the country through his use of social
network sites, his daily offline activity integrated into his online identity.” This also shows how mobile
the technology has become and more people become more available to other
people. Because of social media sites and the advance of having our social
media on our phones, in our hand “all the time”, we are now reachable “all the
time”. The availability of course can be up for discussion if it is good or
not. Is there at any times when we do not want to be available “all the time”?
Are the benefits of availability through social media greater than the fact
that we sometimes don’t want to be available?
In Buck’s method section I got very inspired by her “Time-Use Diary”.
This is something that I think would be interesting for me to do in my paper.
Making my partner create a time-use diary for three average days would probably
make it easier for me to understand how he distributes his social media usage
in his daily life. Also I have highlighted when Buck writes about the “profile
tour”. This is something I do for my paper as well and the reason why I highlighted
this is because I am planning on using my partner’s screencast to gather information
on what perception he has about herself. I am planning to use this as my “So
What?” in my paper.
What I found interesting about Buck’s results section
was when she is writing that Ronnie “saw his
social network site activity as an important part of his self-branding” She
continues on writing how Ronnie reported that he often joined new sites “to “claim
real estate” to reserve his username on the site in case it became popular
later.” I think this is interesting since it says something about how Ronnie is
aware of his image he has on his social media sites. It says that he might be
concerned his image will get lost and someone “takes” his own created identity on
this new social media site. Also she writes “On Twitter, Ronnie was conscious
of keeping his number of followers higher than the number of people he was
following. For him, this number indexed his identity as a producer rather than
a consumer on Twitter.” I think this is interesting since it tells me how he
sees himself as. He view himself as a “producer” for other users on Twitter
rather then a “user”. So then a question raises, if you are a “producer”, aren’t
you a user as well? What determines if you are a producer or “normal user”?
In Buck’s discussion section she talks about how Ronnie
changes his privacy settings into fake information; “He changed his high school to Hogwarts’ School
of
Witchcraft and Wizardry and his current employer to the Ministry of Magic.” I
highlighted this because I think this is very interesting. I think this is a
kind of “hiding behind social media” which I think is somewhat common today.
People that don’t “want to be themselves” can become the person “they want to
be” with help of social media. She also writes that Ronnie “want control over
the information about himself on social media”, which I think is very common
among more and more people in today’s society. I find it very interesting when
Buck writes how Ronnie isnt very concerned about “his information being online
and publically visible…” but what Ronnie was most worried about was “who owned
his information and what they could do with it.” I think this is interesting
since we do not know what all the information goes to. Do we really have
control over our image and info on social media? Can a social media profile and
identity be a victim of identity theft? Also Buck continues on saying; “Ronnie’s
anxiety over ownership of his information and his continual attempts to control
its presentation demonstrate the constant work individuals like Ronnie engage
to manage their life and identity on social network sites. Frequent technology
changes means that these practices can be both
time consuming and never ending.” And my question here is, is it never ending?
In her conclusion Buck says “Studying students like Ronnie, then, calls attention to the stakes for
literacy and identity representation within social network sites, most
especially rhetorical questions of authorship, audience, and privacy, as
individuals share information through structures that flatten multiple groups
of contacts into one audience.” I think it is interesting because I think more
and more people start to think about privacy online, is there any privacy at
all within social media?
She also writes in the conclusion that “The online activity that
individuals engage in on social network sites does not just stay online;
students integrate social network sites into their daily literacy practices.”
And she is continuing on “Viewing this rich literate activity as part of
students’ everyday lives will give us a greater understanding of the literacy
experiences they bring with them to the classroom. Drawing on data from a
longitudinal study of student writing at Stanford, Lunsford et al. (2008) argue
that students are not only writing more, but are also effective in crafting and
communicating specific messages to specific audiences. According to this study,
38% of the writing that the student participants completed happened outside of
the classroom, and much of this writing happened online.” From this I am
thinking about social media as a tool to make people actively write more.
People get to analyze more about events and happenings around them which can
only be developing. Social media only made the writing world better, and maybe
it made us people better-rounded with higher analytic capacities. Maybe the
ongoing development of social media is only making us smarter?
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