Kirby Coffey Adam Padgett ENGL 1102 1/29/14 On The Line I keep waiting for inspiration to strike for

this paper. What role does social media play in my life? I had thought about this once before in my life, but I havent thought about it in awhile. I want to go ahead and state that I probably use social media just as much as the normal teenager would. Before even getting these few sentences down my phone buzzes with snap chats and text messages taunting me to take a look, and of course, I do. The world has come a long way when talking about technology, and I think as technology advances so does my time spent on social media. I probably started getting on social media when I was around 12 or 13. Since Facebook was only meant for the older generation I got a MySpace. Now dont get me wrong, MySpace was the ish back then. It was all about whom you had in your top five5 or what song was blasting on your profile. I even had a pet tiger on my page. I remember spending hours looking at all the different backgrounds trying to find the coolest one. To me, MySpace was a way for me to let out of all the creativity I had. Finally, I was old enough for my parents to allow me to have a Facebook. I had mostly grown out of the awkward trying to be different stage so I wasnt as obsessed about Facebook as I was about MySpace. I even check Facebook to this
Comment [AP4]: ? Comment [AP3]: Is this a bad thing? Comment [AP2]: Which is how much? And how do you know its normal? Comment [AP1]: Interesting word play here, nice!

day, but mostly because family members and the people that I babysit for like to keep in touch. Also groups I had joined would make a Facebook page and would post important dates on there to keep us aware of things. Then I got into Twitter, which is my current choice of social media. The reason why I like Twitter so much is how free it is. You have a thought you want to share with others so you post it. If other people want to see it, great;, if not, they dont have to follow you. But with that freedom to say what you want, you have to be careful. A lot of people think that they cant get in trouble for what they say on social media, but I have seen students expelled because of it. Feelings are hurt and friendships are ended because people dont think before they hit send . Half way through my senior year in high school, I got to go on our schools senior trip to the Dominican Republic. We were told we were not going to have any service there, and to be honest, I was looking forward to it. While I was there, I realized just how much I relied on knowing who was doing what and where, but going to villages and playing with the kids and handing out food really made me revaluate my life. After that trip I really cut down on social media and even today I dont use it as much. I feel like there is this pressure to have so many likes or re-tweets on everything you do that people start to only care about what they are posting. There is even a show on MTV about people addicted to social media. I feel like when people get that obsessed with social media they arent really themselves anymore; they are what there followers/friends expect them to be.
Comment [AP11]: So who do they become then, if not themselves? Comment [AP10]: What do you mean by as much? Can you be clearer? Comment [AP9]: Okay. So what did you discover during this reevaluation? Comment [AP8]: Great! Comment [AP7]: Really interesting stuff here. Comment [AP5]: the personal narrative style youre using here is really engaging to me as the reader. You really seem to have a handle on this genre of writing. Comment [AP6]: What do you mean by free?

As a whole I dont feel like technology/social media itself is a problem. It is mind blowing what we are able to do with the Internet. People are able to shop, families that live far away are able to keep in touch, and there are countless more examples. I believe that when technology is put into the wrong hands it becomes a problem. Kids should not be glued to the devices they should not have the need to be online every waking moment. Too many people will miss out of life if all they care about is getting so many followers or likes on social media.

Questions: 1. How does do social media affect the younger generations social skills? 2. Does social media affect peoples self esteem? 3. What causes people to turn to social media?
Comment [AP12]: media is plural for medium Comment [AP13]: this inquiry seem to have the most potential for research and investigation. Id be really interesting in what youll be able to find.

I thought of these questions by asking myself what is the problem with social media in todays society. I know for the first question I can just look on social media sites and see how kids are talking about and what subjects they are talking about. Also, I know cyber-bulling has become a huge issue, and I want to see how and why it all starts online. Lastly, I want to know different peoples reasons for joining social media. Was it because all their friends were on or maybe there job/ class required it? Kirby, Really interesting subject you seem to be inquiring into here. Im really glad you got to go to the Dominican Republic, and I think that experience could really drive
Comment [AP14]: This topic is certainly a part of your social skills inquiry. One question could be: how is social media changing the way we socialize?

your inquiry. How is the manner in which people who do not have access to social media or the internet live as compared to those who do? What does one culture value over another? I would warn you about being too obscure with your language. Particularly when you discuss the normal amount of time one spends on the internet or social media. I think cyber-bullying is a great topic, and there should certainly be lots of research and discussion on it. You might want to be careful about writing a research paper on cyber bullying is bad because this is self-explanatory. Make sure you are seeking an argument that would be more worth arguing. Maybe you could be making recommendations about how, specifically, to deal with cyber bullying. Just some things to think about.