My first time entering the social media world was in 7th grade. The most popular social media network at the time was Facebook. Out of my grade and social group, I was late to sign up to Facebook. My parents were hesitant to allow me to sign up since I was young and they did not believe I was prepared. I created a Facebook account a few years late in respect to my parents. As I got older, I was adding people I didn’t know because it was “cooler” if you had a high number of friends. Checking Facebook was a daily routine of mine. As new social media platforms started to arise, I felt subjective to join them. From the very beginning of my journey through social media, I was not a huge fan of it. It was more of peer pressure since my peers were connected through it and I felt left out if I didn’t have an account. My next social media account was through Instagram. I enjoyed this account a lot more then Facebook as it had a creative aspect to it. I followed accounts that inspired me and accounts that I was interested in, not just people. In total I posted about 100 photos (within the past 6 years). For many teenagers that was nothing. I also only had followers that I personally knew as oppose to Facebook where I had 800 friends I barley knew. After Instagram Snapchat became very popular. It was a quick communication tool to show “in the moment instances or moments”. Out of all three of the social media platforms I am part of Snapchat pertained to my life the most. I see snapchat as snapshots and important parts of your life that you want to share without being judged since it is temporary. I also see it as another form of texting with a picture or video right away to show what your doing if its worthy enough to show your friends. All in all, now a days I am most active on Snapchat since it is quick and easy to communicate.
I have chosen Instagram to analyze according to McLuhan’s laws of Media. Instagram enhances visual content. Instagram has a variety of filters that intensifies the visual aspect of what is being posted. With Instagram communication is different from lets say Facebook because visuals are being posted as oppose to updates that can be written on Facebook. This is what is obsolete with Instagram. Instagram recovered private messaging from Facebook with Direct messaging. Facebook has private messaging so Instagram recovered that aspect. Last but not least Instagram reversed photography by posting visuals. Before Instagram photos were taken normally and not uploaded to any social media platform.
delaneygonik 