Today marked the final day of documenting our media usage, and it began the same way almost every other day this week did. I woke up and browsed my notifications, responding to a few. I had uni today and when I arrived home in the evening, I posted again on Instagram, this time a picture of the cityscape that I had taken on my iPhone 7 in the afternoon.

I captioned the photo “my love for this city is boundless”, and shared the photo with my small platform of followers. I went onto Facebook and shared a video about legalising LGBTIQ marriage and then headed to bed. I didn’t caption the video, as it was highly self explanatory, however this action of sharing carried a lot of weight for me as I rarely to never share anything on Facebook at all.

Below is an image of the applications that most consume my battery usage, which accurately represents the applications that I most use. Note the percentages of Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook, in relation to the other apps.

I thought a lot about what I had learned about myself and the ways that I had communicated and connected with online media over the space of a week. I had come to several realisations about what platforms I favoured and why I favoured them (particularly Instagram and Snapchat). I developed a more profound understanding of how online media has embedded itself into the fabric our everyday lives, particularly in the form of social media. Staying connected has become so essential to existing, particularly as a millennial, even to the extent of communicating with the same person on several platforms at once. Communication has evolved into this lifestyle, with our catalyst resting in our back pockets and the palms of our hands. Social media means something different to everyone, but this week I realised what it truly meant to me. It is an entity that exists as part of my life, but online medias limitlessness is something that I am fully capable of separating myself from.

Today was Saturday, and once again, I spent the day at work. When I got home, I collapsed on my bed and logged into the Facebook and mindlessly scrolled through my feed, chuckling at dumb memes and tagging my friends in them.

For my friends who don’t have Facebook, saved the memes to my camera roll and sent them either in our collective group chats, or via iMessage.

Retreospectively, by doing this, I raised the question about how I communicate via online media. Before I made a Facebook account, my only means of communication was via Instagram and Snapchat, but in the years since, I have found that Facebook has opened up a variety of different modes of connection. The first and most obvious would be Messenger, Facebook’s own messaging service, followed by Timelines, a place where Friends are able to post public photos, messages, videos and various other content. The last, which has become much more widely used in recent years since the meme renaissance would be the “tagging” feature, which allows for people to directly link others to a post on Facebook.

Sometimes I find myself talking to a specific person on several platforms at once; sending photos via Snapchat, messaging via iMessage, tagging each other in memes via Facebook, and sending pictures to each other on Instagram. This seems so bizarre to me, communication is amplified and multiplied by four or five times. However, this poses a larger question: does the quality of the communication reduce as the modes of communication increases?

Ahhh, Friday. I am so glad you are here. Not that I have the weekend off to enjoy the last of this year’s sunshine, but the weekend is a mere 24 hours away and another week of uni will be over.

I had today to catch up on my uni work before work in the evening. So naturally, I spent the day procrastinating and watching makeup tutorials on YouTube rather than actually taking advantage of the time to be productive. I watched a plethora of tutorials about makeup and skincare, which are topics that I am particularly passionate about.

I left a comment on one of the videos that I watched encouraging the artist to keep up the good work. I get very paranoid about commenting on YouTube videos mainly due to the extreme negativity that is present on that specific platform. I’ve found that commenters on Youtube tend to be quite critical of content creators, and keyboard warriors can be extremely malicious when they are able to hide behind the facade of their devices. Even positive reinforcement and constructive criticism can be misinterpreted behind a screen so it’s very rare that I comment or engage with content online. 

I tend to watch a lot of content on YouTube for the main purpose of education. I am a very visual learner, so being taught how to do anything from creating a makeup look to making a breakfast burrito, is made so simple with a resource that enables me to watch how things are done, rather than reading or listening about it.

Today I decided to mix things up a little. I started work at 9a.m. and for the first time I was working at Melbourne Central, so the time that I usually take to check my notifications in the morning was overrode by my desperate need for the rare commodity of sleep. I fumbled onto the 7:34 train at Dandenong Station and plugged my headphones into my ears and hit play on my Spotify playlist. I arrived at work and only took the time to check my social media notifications on my morning tea break, by which time they had doubled. I went onto Instagram and took a Boomerang of the LUSH Melbourne Central store, letting my followers know that I was working there and to come down and say hello.   

I took the Boomerang with my iPhone 7 and uploaded it to my Instagram story as a means of distribution. I only posted it to Instagram as I’m only followed by people on there whom I’d actually like to come see me at work, instead of having strangers show up to my workplace. I added my location to the GIF, which is a feature on the app as well.

Retrospectively, today I was short on time and wasn’t necessarily able to actively engage with online media in the way that I generally would.

It’s a new day of documenting my media use, and today’s regime has been very similar to yesterday’s. Today I woke up and checked my notifications, responding to a few Snapchats and liking the posts that I have been tagged in on Facebook. Today was my day off, so I decided to log onto Netflix and indulge in some ‘Bates Motel’.

I sent out a Snapchat of this to my friends and ended up having a conversation with my best friend about what episode he was up to and how shocking the season final had been. The picture included my laptop with a screen-cap of the episode as well as a cup of tea on my lap.

I sent out that Snapchat in order to let the people whom I frequently communicate with know that I finally had a day off after what felt like decades, and I was absolutely and without a doubt enjoying it in the laziest way possible. I’m beginning to notice that it feels really strange explaining why I do certain things on social media, because I’ve never really given much thought as to why I do them, I simply just do. They’ve effortlessly become automatic processes that are apart of my day and every day life now.

Today we have been tasked with documenting our use of online media over the space of one week. 7 days, 7 posts. This is to enable us a profound understanding of the ways in which we engage with online media. Every morning I wake up and check my notifications from Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. This permits me to feel connected to the world right off the bat at the start of the day. On the train, I listen to my playlist on Spotify, which is directly linked to my Facebook account. Tonight I posted a picture on Instagram of a picture of myself at the beach from the 15th of March as a “throwback to less stressful times”.

The picture was taken by my sister on her iPhone 6S, and I edited it with the app Afterlight, as well as the Instagram editing services. I only posted this picture on Instagram as this platform is my most personal means of self-expression as I have the most control over who views my content (i.e. private account, selective with followers).

The purpose behind posting this photo was predominantly because at Week 4 in the semester, I was feeling the pressure from uni, and wished to reminisce on happier and more carefree times. Posting on Instagram allows the people closest to me, whom I permit to follow me, to stay in touch with what I am doing. I am not an avid communicator, I’m not very responsive to texts, messages and emails due to my lack of work/uni/life balance, so posting on Instagram is a fast way to let the people I care about know that I am alive and doing well.