By Mikayla Gilmer
You have waited a full day to post a picture that took about 50 different tries and 1 hour to edit. You wait until around lunch time on a Wednesday or Friday because you know that is when you will have the most Instagram engagement. Once the dopamine from all the notifications wears off, you slump back into your couch and wonder what you are going to watch next since they took Friends off Netflix.
Calls and texts messages are not enough if you are living in the Digital Age. If you’re like me you use Facebook to keep in touch with family members while also staying updated with clubs and activities on campus, Instagram for posting pictures and higher quality stories, Snapchat for lower quality stories and quick photo communication, and VSCO for editing photos you deem “edgy” or “artsy”. College students tend to spend so much time on social media, it should be considered a marketing internship for the self.
There are hundreds of different types of social media apps out there in the world, and there are more and more applications being created even as I write this blog. When using social media, you have to ask yourself—Why am I using it? Since there are so many different types of social medias for so many different uses, this question is a hard one to generalize. However, I believe that the purpose for social media can fall into one overarching category: Information Provider. Facebook will inform you about a friend from high school getting engaged. Instagram can let you know that a new burger place opened up down the street from you (and didn’t think to invite you along). Snapchat can show you videos of your friends new dog. VSCO can show you the latest filters for photo editing.
So next time you post, snap, or tik tok, ask yourself “What information am I releasing to the world?
Building Bridges 