Before reading "Social Media? Get serious! Understanding the
functional building blocks of social media" this week I had not given much thought to the purposes behind the different forms of social media. In my mind it was pretty simple Facebook is for "old" people like me, Instagram is for the younger crowd, YouTube is for watching funny videos, occupying small children in a restaurant, or watching a video to learn something new. Twitter, in my world, was just something famous people used. I was also told that college coaches like to recruit high school athletes using Twitter although for both of my high school athletes this proved to not be the case. I found out that I actually have a Twitter account because I tried to set one up for this class and my email and phone number were already in use, but I couldn't remember my username or password. After some serious brain-scratching I did vaguely recall needing to have a Twitter account to get updates about weather delays at a swim meet we were attending and to access the race results.
functional building blocks of social media" this week I had not given much thought to the purposes behind the different forms of social media. In my mind it was pretty simple Facebook is for "old" people like me, Instagram is for the younger crowd, YouTube is for watching funny videos, occupying small children in a restaurant, or watching a video to learn something new. Twitter, in my world, was just something famous people used. I was also told that college coaches like to recruit high school athletes using Twitter although for both of my high school athletes this proved to not be the case. I found out that I actually have a Twitter account because I tried to set one up for this class and my email and phone number were already in use, but I couldn't remember my username or password. After some serious brain-scratching I did vaguely recall needing to have a Twitter account to get updates about weather delays at a swim meet we were attending and to access the race results.
Now, rethinking my presence on social media sites, I realize (1) I have more social media accounts than I thought I did and (2) I use them all for different purposes, but maybe not the purpose the provider intended. For example, I used my Linkedin account to search for jobs I could do with a teaching degree that weren't teaching. That's how I learned about instructional design and ended up in this class. I have no connections, posts, followers, etc. I use this site in a very Web1.0 way...for now. Facebook is a site I use primarily for relationships and groups. I belong to several special interest groups: pilot wives, homeschool moms, parents page of my son's college, etc. It's strange to think that some of my best friends are people I have never met in real life! Over 20 years ago I was in an online support forum for women who had experienced a pregnancy loss. I started having conversations with four women who could relate to my exact situation. The four of us supported each other and we have even stayed close through the births of ELEVEN healthy babies. Now that I think about it, that support forum was my first time dipping a toe into 2.0
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