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Instagram Data: Nostalgia… with a Side of Reality

My Instagram profile, as of April 10.

When I first got Instagram as a 7th grader, I never really cared what I put out there. I thought I didn’t have anything to hide, so I tended to post, well… everything.

I got my Instagram around Christmas and thought it was “aesthetic” to post a picture of… Christmas punch leftovers…???

At the same time, I was paranoid because of the show Person of Interest, a drama about digital surveillance. The protagonists’ machine would analyze a person’s digital footprint to determine if they were potentially in danger.

The powers of that surveillance machine terrified me with dark fantasies of how other people could possibly harness my information online, too…

…But since it was fiction, it never convinced me to minimize my digital footprint.

“You are being watched” is literally the opening lines of this intro.

Fast forward 6 years later. Since then, I’ve matured online. I no longer post everything—just a few posts a month to mark eventful days. Usually, though, these limits lull me into a false sense of protection from Instagram’s data collection.

I even thought Instagram was collecting incorrect data!

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Blowing Off Steam for Quarantined Teens

An appropriate short comic summing up my feelings as I wrote this blog post. (Drawn by Nancy | Instagram: @nank.png)

I thought my media consumption while I was still on campus was bad. It’s worse under quarantine.

Basically my daily routine nowadays. (GIF: blaisems on Reddit | GIPHY)

While I was on campus, I was constantly busy, so I didn’t spend too much time on my phone. In fact, the week that USC announced the *first* extension of online classes, I only spent roughly 3 hours on my phone daily.

But as soon as I returned home, I started spending, on average, 5-6 hours on my phone daily – twice the time!

  • My daily average time spent on my phone. This time increased starting Thursday when I went home for spring break.
  • My daily average time on my phone over spring break. (Double the week before!)
  • The time I spent on my phone every day on average this week (not a full week)

Still, my media consumption habits themselves haven’t really changed. I heavily use social media. My news consumption is still minimal, although the COVID-19 situation compels me to pay closer attention now.

Continue reading “Blowing Off Steam for Quarantined Teens”
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Stop & Smell the Political Prose(s)

(Featured image taken from “Mike Pompeo goes to war on wikileaks” on The national interest)

Lies. Fake news. President Trump and his staff have been smearing journalism with these labels since the start of his presidency.

Because of that, I wasn’t surprised to hear that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo avoided answering interview questions on NPR and released an angry statement against reporter Mary Louise Kelly.

Sec. of State Mike Pompeo’s official statement against Mary Louise Kelly (state.gov)

But reporter Jason Breslow creatively caught my attention with an intriguing headline:

Pompeo Won’t Say If He Owes Yovanovitch an Apology. ‘I’ve Done What’s Right.’

After that, Breslow created bold subheadings to sustain my curiosity.

But creativity aside, would this article pass John McManus’s “SMELL” Test?

It’s time for us to stop and smell the prose(s).

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The Social (Media) Butterfly

Sharing Too Much & Reading Too Little

This whole blog post is based on the media log below.

From the moment this blog was assigned, I already knew what would dominate my media diet: social media.

My media consumption varies throughout the week. I still check Snapchat while going to class, but because I’m so focused on schoolwork, I’m not glued to my phone on weekdays.

But on weekends, I never put down my phone.

I’m a social butterfly, so I really like interacting with people. When I’m on my phone, naturally, I constantly check on my friends. I guess that also makes me a social media butterfly…

Not an actual butterfly like Heimlich here, but a social one. (GIF by hello-claudia33 on Tumblr)

When I was tracking my media consumption on Friday, I thought I wouldn’t be using social media as much because I was hanging out with my high school friends. We were even watching an ITZY concert, which meant even more time away from my phone… right?

Wrong. I still used social media just as much, if not more.

Continue reading “The Social (Media) Butterfly”
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