Info 621 First Assignment- Reflect on your Social Media Experiences

Our professor's first step in teaching us to be mindful social media users was to get us to reflect on our past and present social media behavior. I thought my first memories of social media were my use of it in college, but reflecting on it reminded me that my real first memories of the Internet are of my chat room junkie father when I was in high school. I remember this precisely because the week before high school graduation, in 1996, I was trying to call home for him to come pick me up because a dog had bit me and I needed to be stitched up, but the paramedics decided it didn't warrant an ambulance ride to the hospital. Repeated calls from the neighbor's land line ended in a busy signal and so I knew my dad was online. I spent commencement with a cast on hand and my arm in a sling, so you could say that my first memories of social media are not fond ones.

My current behavior toward social media is one of me, me, me. I consume content when I need/want it, but rarely do I contribute. No posts on people's blogs (certainly if I don't know the author), no comments in forums, retweet something I read on twitter? Never. And now I know why I don't have millions of followers (not that I want millions, or even ten followers :-) )! I've always said that I prefer to engage in real life instead of the virtual world (and I do volunteer, I am social), but now I know the real reason why: teenage angst. Tsk.