Post 3: How will your own work in this studio be informed by your understandings of social media, the data from the Sensis surveys and your examples of social media mentioned above? What information do you hope to gather from the Sensis data?

I would like my work in this studio to be informed by my progressive knowledge of how social media operates, who uses it, and for what purpose, whether it be for personal reasons or for business. What interests me about social media is that the media landscape is always changing and with each update, the way we interact with each other becomes more complex.

It is interesting to see the younger generation gravitate towards platforms that the older generation tends not to use (Snapchat and TikTok, for example). For this reason, I would like to know how social media platforms are engaging these younger audiences. What drives social media use for each age demographic? To learn, to be entertained, to buy, consume news content, to be creative? This knowledge would be useful for running business accounts and creating content that consumers will respond to (which is especially important during a pandemic). Additionally, looking at the Black Lives Matter movement has given me an insight into how platforms like Instagram are always changing to reflect what is happening in the real world, and how it brought political conversations into the online space.

As the Sensis data suggests that social media is seen as having more of a negative than positive effect on privacy, concentration, productivity, sleeping, and patience, I would like to discover how much of an impact increased social media use is having on the mental health of its users during a pandemic. Moving forward, I would like to conduct further research with Sensis to develop a campaign that build awareness for public health (or something in this sphere) as mental health awareness is something I feel strongly about.