Valenzuela 1
Cassandra Valenzuela
July 11, 2011
English 01C
Professor Higgin
Social Analysis
Social Media finally took its existence within my life during my junior year in high school. While I had already known about how huge MySpace was, and how many users it had, I never really had any interest in creating an account. It wasn’t until my junior year, that one of my best friends made an account for me. I had always told her I never really seen its importance, or what purpose it served, but she told me it was fun, and to just join. So, once my account was created, I was hooked. I would find myself on MySpace for countless of hours. I wasted so much of my time creating my profile, uploading pictures, and actually decorating my wall, for all to see. This was a way to express myself to others, who came to visit my page. I guess I wanted to let them know that I was more than what I portrayed myself to be in high school. I wanted people to know that I wasn’t just this crazy kid who wanted so dearly to grow up in the 70’s. After a few years I finally deleted my MySpace account. I deleted it after a friend of mine at Cal Poly
Pomona, told me to create a face book account instead, because that’s what all the college students were now using to communicate. So, again I switched my means of communication to face book, and now interesting enough, I wasn’t as hooked to it as I was on my MySpace account. I feel that as I have gotten older, and along with my record of activity over these past few days on social media sites, I use them primarily for entertainment, and to see what’s going on in everyone’s life.

Valenzuela 2
Reflecting back on my use of social media, I found that over the past three days, the only sites I really engaged with were Face book, YouTube, and Vimeo with the busy lifestyle I live, I found myself not really using social media, as much as I thought I had. When we reflected in class of all the different sites people engaged within, I felt a bit out of date. I was wondering what all these sites being listed on the board were, and how people actually had the time to use these sites. I was amazed at all the different methods of social media that were available to the public. With my life consisting of working over 30 hours a week at Starbucks, and going to school full time, while also trying to find time to spend with my friends and family, social media is on the last of my list of things to do. While I have found that Face book is useful in connecting with old high school friends, I also found myself lurking on everyone’s profiles. I often posed the question as to why I waste my time looking at others profiles, and couldn’t really come up with an answer. I guess I enjoy knowing what people are up to, who they’re dating, who they’re hanging out with, and what drama they have following them. It makes me feel up to date. It also at times gives me this feeling of guilt, for looking so deeply into these people’s lives without them even knowing of this. With these profiles being so open, and people openly putting their lives up on display, how could one not go digging into these profiles? I guess you could say I am one nosey individual, who like to know about everyone that surrounds me in my life.
In looking into my profile I’ve created, I noticed that I don’t really let out that much information about myself. While I use Face book to communicate with friends, and to let them know what I am up to, I found myself only posting happy updates. I never post updated that show my weaknesses, or my anger. It was interesting to find this. It’s as if I only want people to see my in a good way, as being a happy person, rather than to see my sadness. I don’t want

Valenzuela 3 people to know what make me sad, or for that matter to know when I’m going through a difficult situation. I don’t really care for people to know were I’m at, what time I went there, or who I’m with. I keep this much of my life private; it’s nobody’s business but my own, and who I’m with at that specific time. Having said that, I am a very private individual, I probably only have about
120 friends on Face book, that I communicate with regularly. I never add people just for the heck of it to see my friends list grow, or to compete against others. I deny those I’ve only spoken with a few times, or those I don’t even know. I like to keep what I have to say personal, and only with the people I think I can trust.
Another site of social media I found myself using was YouTube and Vimeo. I often used these sites for my own enjoyment and as entertainment with my friends. I used You Tube to look up music videos, videos shown on Tosh.O, and humorous videos that would make me laugh.
YouTube entertains me, and keeps me laughing, I love it. My friends and I use it all the time. I don’t have an account created, nor do I ever leave comments for others to read, I never understand the purpose of it. Another site I have recently found myself on is Vimeo. One of my friends has just recently begun uploading his videos on this site, so I’ve only used it a few times to view them. Maybe in the future I’ll be finding myself on this site a bit more, but for now I’ve only been on there twice.
Social Media serves as a source of entertainment in my life. While I know I often use it to portray only thing I feel people should know about me, I use it to entertain myself during down time. It keeps me up to date on people’s lives, and keeps me connected with friends I don’t see on a day to day basis.

Social Media Log
Wednesday 7/6
3:54pm
- logged onto face book at work on my 10 minute break.
- read updates posted by friends.
- commented on friends picture of her dog.
- tagged in a photo?
6pm
Logged onto face book at work on my lunch
Read everyone’s updates and commented on friends profile.
Looked at another friend’s wedding pictures and commented on those
Searched YouTube for music videos.
Looked at vimeo videos
11:15 pm
Logged onto facebook at home after work
Watched videos friends left on my wall
Commented on them, logged out
Thursday 7/7
2pm
Logged onto face book on break to see status updates. Logged out.
7:45pm
Logged onto face book on lunch, to see status updates at work.
-
Commented on multiple friends’ status.
Was added into family tree
Added link for change.org, to sign a petition on Caylees law.
Watched video on vimeo
2:30am
Checked update statuses before bed
Was tagged in a location
Commented on friends status
Friday 7/8
11 am.
Logged onto face book to see update statuses
8pm
logged onto face book to see update statuses
read notifications

commented on pic of friend
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Wrote two happy birthdays on friend’s wall.