social media – 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!

Blowing Off Steam for Quarantined Teens

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.