WEEK FOUR

This week we discussed our citizenship online. With Jesse Miller, we covered privacy & safety, bullying, consent, professionalism, digital footprints, and social media.

I found that this lecture was so informative! Like many of my other classmates, I have a presence on social media and have had it for years. It’s interesting to talk about our generation and our connections (and/or addictions) to our phones.

I feel today’s class got me to think about social media in another light. I was raised in a household where I was always informed about safety and social media and my parents and I were super open with what I was doing on my phone/ computer. Same with my school, we had a no-phone policy and all students obeyed and respected those rules. In the grand scheme of things, however, I know that these instances are not the case for most people. Today, I learned a lot about what is considered ‘safe’ for me and my friends online. Looking through some of the examples of inappropriate usages of social media completely shocked me that someone would do those things! I feel like it’s so important for everyone to understand their presence on social media and learn about appropriate usages of apps online. I’m happy we were able to go through what social media looks like in schools from a teacher’s perspective! Especially how we as teachers have resources that can help keep students safe online.

One of my goals for this year, which I mention in further detail in my free inquiry, was spending less time on my phone, specifically on social media. I feel like with covid and online school last year, I’m not proud of my screen time and it’s something I want to work on. My 3 hours of daily screen time can be used in much better ways and that’s what I’ve been exploring. Though it’s only been a month, I feel like I have gained a lot of insight into how I view social media. My biggest takeaway from this month at least is how I feel about social media. Most days, I feel like I’m on a fence about how important I view it. For example, I feel like using my phone to stay in contact with family through I-message as well as emails are fine. On the other hand, other texting apps change my mind and I am unsure how to feel about it. Often I feel like I need to check Snapchat to stay in contact with my friends because it’s simpler to communicate there. For example, I am in a cohort group chat and I don’t want to miss what’s happening so I check Snapchat often because I feel like I need to. I feel like I often question how bad that ‘need’ is and will a few hours change anything. Once I’m on those apps, however, it’s hard to not get sucked in and feel the need to check up on everything. It’s crazy to see how dependent I became on those apps and now, trying to step away is hard because I built it into my main methods to communicate with friends. Over that past month, I’m proud of my process of being able to just put my phone down after doing the ‘necessary’ things to catch myself up and stay in the loop.

Sources:

Photo 1: Adem AY (unsplash)

Photo 2: Georgia de Lotz (unspash)