Hands-On Assignment 2

      I would define social media as an online platform intended to connect communities, I would define social networking as a person or group reaching out through social media and events to extend their community and open themselves to new opportunities. I currently use Snapchat, TikTok, Pinterest, Discord, YouTube, and Reddit; I recently also used Instagram but deleted it at the beginning of the year.

       I use Snapchat primarily to communicate with friends who live out of state and do not visit Florida often or at all; I use TikTok to get ideas for communication and gentle parenting tips with kids since I have a lot of younger cousins and one nephew who I watch during the week, and also for Dungeons and Dragons ideas or content as my girlfriend and I love to play tabletop RPG’s. Pinterest is similarly used for Dungeons and Dragons ideas or character art but also for home ideas and general aesthetic art. I use Discord to communicate with friends and do group calls like FaceTime with people without iPhones; I use Reddit for tattoo inspiration and information on artists while I am planning out the different pieces I want to get and saving for them. YouTube I use a lot for calming videos for my cousins and nephew, as well as for my Portuguese class, cooking inspiration, and music playlists. I would say I use Pinterest the most since it has the least amount of negativity, at least in my experience, but it is closely followed by Discord and YouTube while Reddit, Snapchat, and TikTok are used less but still used on a regular basis. 

       Excluding Tiktok, I feel mostly comfortable with my social media use and since three of the six I use are completely anonymous I do not feel that it impacts my family. I exclude TikTok because I have noticed a lot of changes lately that I am not very comfortable with and there is also the continuous use of the algorithm against POC creators that they have refused to change; all things considered, I will probably be deleting it soon. Discord does affect my family because we have a family wide group chat on there where we can communicate across the states which has actually been very helpful and nice to have. In regards to how my use of social media affects my view of the world, I believe it brings awareness to the problems other countries and people are having and can help us to be worldly, but it can also very negatively impact mental health because of all of the awful things happening in the world.