Zwanziger Blog #1

Lexie Zwanziger

Blog Entry #1

 For as long as I can remember, I have always had a somewhat love hate relationship with social media. When I was in high school I would spend hours trying to make sure that my Instagram feed looked well thought out and put together, no matter how much time it was taking from more important things in my life. I was fascinated with how people portray themselves online, and how creative people got with their feeds. I would spend hours watching YouTube videos about how to achieve the “perfect” feed and following those who had an established “aesthetic”.

However, since coming to college and broadening my experiences, I started to care less and less about posting on social media. Not only that, but I realized that posting on social media started becoming a source of anxiousness for me, rather than the fun that it had previously been. The fun I once had planning my feed had faded and instead it started to feel more and more like a job. I started getting in the habit of doing an Instagram “cleanse”, where I would delete the app for some months to ease some of my anxieties that were coming from the app. I started doing this again in the beginning of the year, and still have not re-downloaded the app just yet. While I do not always post on social media, I realized that I still do use it for a lot of things, such as for relaxation and humor purposes. Throughout all of the apps that I mainly use I realized that I don’t post that much on social media, but instead use it to read/watch what other people are posting. While I do think that too much social media may start to give you anxiety, I definitely want to try and be more active on my social media sites.

My most used app is YouTube, which was not that much of a surprise to me. I have always loved YouTube, as I feel like there is a lot you can do on the app. You can use it to try and learn things (such as how to cook), as well as watching videos of people doing things you find interesting. I think one of the main reasons why YouTube was my most popular app is because I use it a lot when I’m doing cardio workouts which I found is a great way to help pass time and keep me interested. YouTube has helped me find new hobbies, such as thrifting and “flipping” the clothes, and even kick-started my health and fitness journey. My favorite videos to watch at the moment are mainly about what people cook and eat to help them stay in shape. Not only that, but I also have learned a lot about working out and fitness, such as what new workouts to try. While there are a lot of constructive aspects of YouTube, there is also a lot of drama that is on the site. 

One of my guilty pleasures is watching “drama videos”, which is basically a person reporting what the YouTube “celebrities” are doing. This is very much like TMZ, in that they are reporting on new things that are occurring related to YouTube creators. These videos are what I mainly watch when I am working out, because they keep me entertained and also informed on what’s currently happening in the realm of YouTube.
My second most used app is Snapchat, which I mainly use to talk with my friends throughout the day. Snapchat is one of my favorite ways of communication, mainly because it’s fun and interesting. You can easily share pictures with one another about what’s happening around you, and you can even easily share news articles with your friends too. One of the main reasons why I use Snapchat, is because of them explore and news page. I find out a lot of news mainly from Snapchat rather than a news app such as CNN. Granted, I don’t read news that is “important”, as I mainly only read gossip articles from Daily Mail.

My third most used app is TikTok, which is a relatively new app that reminds me a lot of the old app Vine. 
For a long time, I thought that it was really weird that people in college were using TikTok, as I didn’t really understand what it was. I knew that it had come from an app called Musical.ly, which was mainly aimed at people in their early teenage years, so I thought that it was similar. Oh how I was wrong. While there still are some “cringy” things on TikTok every now and again, it’s mainly only short funny videos. Not only that, but I find a lot of useful tips and information from TikTok as well. Something that I see a lot of on my TikTok page that I enjoy are cooking videos, surprise surprise. These videos often show people cooking their healthy meals, which I always want to try and do myself. On top of that, there are also a lot of videos that show clothing stores or cool items to buy. My favorite item that I own is a night sky light that my boyfriend gave to me, which we originally saw on TikTok. Another one of the main reasons why I enjoy TikTok so much is because of the positivity that is on the app. I genuinely believe that out of all of the apps TikTok spreads the most positivity, whether it be in videos or from comments people are leaving. I think that on a lot of social media sites comment sections are filled with negativity, or people use the app to fight with one another. On TikTok it feels like it’s the opposite. It is really rare that I see people being mean to one another, and even if there is a questionable comment it’s mainly done so with humor purposes and not to be malicious.

From looking at the social media that I use, I realized that I rarely am the one posting, which I want to try and get in a little bit of a better habit about. Not only that, but social media is mainly how we connect with one another, whether that be talking to one another over apps or talking about things we learned from the apps. Social media plays a huge role with how we interact and connect with one another in our everyday lives, whether we realize it or not.