data – Girl Meets The World of Media

Instagram Data: Nostalgia… with a Side of Reality

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!

Your Tired, Your Poor… But What About Your Refugees?

“…the U.S. is no longer the world’s top country for refugee admissions… The decline in U.S. refugee admissions comes at a time when the number of refugees worldwide has reached the highest levels since World War II.”
– Jens Manuel Rogstad, “Key facts about refugees to the U.S.”, Pew Research Center

When I read these words while researching for my infographic, I shook my head in disbelief. There are more people that need help, but the U.S. government is reducing any effort to help them.

Thus, I decided I needed to highlight this tragic disparity: though more refugees need to be resettled, the U.S. is turning them away. It’s unacceptable.

I also wanted my infographic to call my audience to action (demanding change from their state representative). As a result, I created this infographic on Canva: