I recently kept a diary of sorts, for one day only, to log my personal digital consumption. I didn’t need the exercise to know that digital devices are a large part of my life or that I spend a fair amount of time engaging with digital technology throughout my day. However, the task was a good way to check in on the balance (or maybe lack thereof) I try to achieve between using digital devices for efficiency and for entertainment.
Over the course of any day, there are a great number of apps that I use. I love using social media. For someone who is not as good at continuous texting conversations as the rest of her generation, using different social media is just one way I stay connected to my friends and family. The reason that Facebook tends to be the social media of choice for me, is that it seems to be the most universally used amongst the people that I care about keeping in touch with. It has my family spanning across the age divides up to my 80 year old grandma and reaches all the way across the ocean to my friends in Europe from my semester abroad.
Some of the other apps that I love and use aren’t as inclusive. Snapchat was not that big at the time of my traveling experience and only one of the friends I made, had already had the app. By the time I left, I had definitely brow-beated them into downloading the app knowing that it would be a great way to see their faces everyday long after our time at Uni was over. Snapchat is an app where I go to for a pretty limited group of people. I am not connected with very much family at all, and even when I consider the people from my age group that I’ve ended up connected with there is really an eclectic mix.
I love Instagram but I use that in bursts, when I’m feeling inspired by the things around me, or when I have something aesthetically pleasing to share. But frankly, my current state is not that glamorous as I lay in bed, in my pajamas still, just working on all of my homework. My Fitbit keeps jingling and telling me to move but little does it know I am being very productive.
I find Twitter at its most exciting during award shows or other times when you know people will be on to live-tweet events. Being able to engage in the conversation with so many people, and with the potential to reach celebrities (thanks for the tweet, Nick Carter) or other people that would normally seem out of reach, is what keeps Twitter relevant to me.
I think Facebook has been a remarkable company to watch and ultimately has provided a great service throughout its time. The people that run it have been very conscious to listen to their users. Their site and app are constantly being refreshed. They aren’t afraid to experiment with new ideas and I think its been a tremendous part of their success. Facebook is smart to include innovations that other companies have put out there, keeping them relevant.
For people like me, the mildly lazy communicator, why would I go to so many different apps to achieve all of these individual purposes/goals when I could do all or most of them on Facebook?
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