In the beginning of 2022, I had three goals for myself: to not stay in relationship/friendships that don’t benefit me, start going to the gym consistently, and not spend as much time on my phone. I understand that certain new years resolutions and goals can be pretty cliche and have a stigma around them. However, I do always try to accomplish at least one of the goals I make for myself at the start of every new year. While the phone goal was accomplished for about two weeks after the new year, the two other goals did stick throughout the year. At the beginning of the school year, my roommate asked me if I wanted to accompany her to the gym. Since then, we’ve gotten into a routine schedule to lift together every day. I was never able to push myself to go, especially due to the fact I would be going alone, but now that I have Britney, I feel way more comfortable and enjoy going. Regarding serving relationships/friendships that aren’t beneficial to me, I started to distance myself from certain people who didn’t have my best interest in mind. By distancing myself from everyone, I was able to see who my true friends were.

I’m going into 2023 feeling satisfied and more motivated to accomplish my new goals. I have created four new goals for myself. First, I want to finish out the second semester and end of my freshman year of college on a high note with at least a 3.3 GPA. I know I can do it, as long as I keep my motivation up and procrastination at a minimum. Secondly, I want to come out of my shell a little bit more, be social, and meet new people. I believe I’ll be able to achieve this with the help of rushing in early January. Third, focus on efficiently saving money. The broke college student lifestyle is not enjoyable and has made me realize I’m not great at saving money. Lastly, I want to continue going to the gym. I’m so grateful to Britney for showing me the ropes in the gym. I want to get to the point where I feel experienced enough that I could go home and enter my gym there and be able to work out comfortably knowing I can work out safely and efficiently without a partner there.

In March book 3, we read about the impact that the media had on shining light on issues, such as police brutality, that African Americans had been facing. New anchors would cut into real footage of marches and reveal the violent advances of the police dealing with the “unlawful assembly.” The media had the impact it did because it reached all across the nation, showing what was really happening under their noses. The nation’s response was pretty immediate, demanding there be no inference of marches and then religious leaders, ministers, and priests discussed their desire to march alongside the protesters.

Social media nowadays can be very beneficial, just as it can be negative. I use social media mostly to stay in contact with friends and family I’m separated from and to capture memories that I often look back on. I can use social media to post about social issues and post GoFundMe’s for people or problems that need profit. Social media is also convenient because there are always people offering their input on social issues. Therefore, it is easy to inform yourself, typically with both sides of every topic. You can practically educate yourself on any social issue on social media by reading hundreds and thousands of other individuals’ opinions and views. Though, I think social media is also very damaging to my generation and the next. Social media apps, like Twitter where you can only use up to 140 characters per tweet makes it evidently harder to discuss nuance and complex social issues. As people try to keep informed and update their followers, many statements and views can be misinterpreted. As well as social media often beats the news. Many events that take place will often be tweeted, and posted about on Instagram and Facebook before media outlets will release more complete stories. Oftentimes, on social media when an issue is presented it may often be one-sided, or lack lots of contexts. Events often will get painted in a different light than the reality of the situation. Another way social media is negative is how endangering it can be. When protests were going on during the pandemic for police brutality, racial injustices, and LGTBQA+ issues, people would post publicly about when and where these protests were to be held. Making these protests easy targets for predators against said issues to come and disrupt the peace.

https://www.cs.odu.edu/~tkennedy/cs300/development/Public/M03-SocialMedia/index.html

Media coverage allowed for the the message of the freedom fighters to reach so many more than just writing a letter it was the ability to have people hear the determination and see the effort the people were putting in to fight along with finally being able to see the damage the police brutality was doing. Thus finally the point of the protesters was to reach the people that support their cause or wanted to join like a wave of support was gathered from a broadcast. 

 The media we have today it is I would say more invasive but somehow at the same time impersonal never before has the world been able to access what we have and see so much into the life’s of others on a regular basis. As for how I use social media I have never really been one to use it intact. I have less than ten followers on all of my platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Tiktok. I only use social media to interact with my very small group of close friends and family. I could however be using it to network and actually talk to people, meet people and engage in platforms that would improve my social skills and experience more things doing what I like with a community of people who also enjoy what I do, I could be using it to stand up and support those who need it or finding people for them to reach out to in order to get what they need. Basically socializing or helping. 

Leading into the negatives why media has lost its way of helping. One most apps have algorithms to show you what will keep on instead of what is better understanding, in order to stay in favor of the public people may be known to put on a facade but then there is the protection that people can get from the media allowing them to spread hate and not be found. The internet and social media can also be in vice versa very invasive to privacy.

For most of the Civil Rights Movement media had brought shame to black people. However on this day when media took a 15 minute clip of the incident it all changed. On a certain Sunday in America Civil Rights leader John Lewis had led a march into Montgomery, Alabama. However this would be cut short as a militia had blocked the other side of a bridge they needed to cross. The Militia had yelled at them to leave but they did not they wanted to speak to the leader. The Leader told them to leave or else they would make them leave. After waiting there for two minutes John Lewis and the other people of the march were massacred. This incident was called Bloody Sunday. This made it onto national news and the people of America were shocked. They could not believe that this bruteness was happening in their own country. people started to rise up and this all led to a march on Washington where they gained millions of followers. The media covered that as well and this helped the movement tremendously. To the point of finally integrating society as one.

The media today has expanded tremendously with social media, TV news coverage, and more. The people of my generation including me primarily use social media. We can see what is going on in the world from a first hand perspective. I personally use Instagram,Tiktok,and Twitter. there are multiple ways to use it from new trends all the way to massacre’s like Bloody Sunday. I also believe that there are positive and negative ways to use social media. Pistive ways being: helping nature or donating to charities. While negative ways being to harm someone or counter a movement with hate. For example cuber bullying is a real problem into today’s world and it has driven people I know to suicide. People hide behind their screens and pick on one another without consequence. Believe that is the wrong use for social media. We Should use it to bring each other up and hopefully soon it will be that way.

#Insta #CivilRights