This essay has continued to increase my knowledge about the ways in which media practices are evolving every day, from the platforms of Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 to Social Media and Old Media to New Media. The readings that i did helped me in my essay by backing up quotes and theories and in general all were very interesting to read to get an understanding on just how far the World Wide Web has come. I am lucky to be part of the generation that has an ever growing understanding into technology and the way that it continues to evolve.
This essay and the assessment as a whole was beneficial and am i happy to have learnt a lot about myself and the ways that i use my own media practices.
I have been following Jessica Hepels blog JSHeath, Jessica Hepel is one of Australia’s leading nutrtionists. Because i am all about health and wellness her blog appeals to me most and this is why i am discussing it here on my own blog today because it is what interests me!
JSHealth gives you the insight into healthy eating, giving you an understanding by what works best for Jess and what may work for you, she doesn’t just tell you what to do she provides recipes to give you the opportunity to understand the need for healthy eating.
It is an extremely easy site to navigate as the top bar provides like to recipes more of her blogs including beauty, nutrition, travel, real talk, fitness, lifestyle and healthy Q & A’s. the bar also includes links to her videos, shop and events as well as the link to join the JSHealth Program.
Every time i look on this blog i am forever motivated with new things to go and do as well as bake and cook to get the best out of life.
Jessica Hepel has many forms of social networking platforms to try and target as many health addicts out there as she can and on her blog are links to all of her pages including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Pintrest!
Its unbelievable how others with health passions can influence you differently but positively everyday!
This process was rather monotonous and tedious however over the last few weeks i have taken the time to reflect on the way in which social networking platforms consume my daily life. Writing this now a few weeks after i did the seven day documentation i can safely say that it was worth while because i learnt things about myself that i didn’t know before, i have the opportunity to change the way i live my life on social media now. We were given an opportunity that others weren’t, and when i do contribute things to my own media pages i need to be able to do it for me rather than for others which is what, when looking back i was definitely doing. Up until now i probably wasn’t critical enough on myself but going forward and in my essay that is something i hope to improve on and i need to be able to use the readings and blogs that we have been given access to do so.
This journey has been really beneficial as i will continue to grow now with the processes i have learnt 🙂
Throughout this documentation framework experience I have learnt and begun to question the way in which we use but also contribute to media practices. Through this journey what I questioned most was:
Do we consume at a higher rate than we contribute?
I believe we do, throughout the week I noticed how much I rely on social media and how I attached we can be to it. This project for me became extremely monotonous and even though each day I subjected different activities to change it up, I was getting bored because my reality was that I was doing the same thing each day. I think people find that it is a lot easier to just wake up and look through your Facebook and Instagram feeds, this providing us with morning entertainment. It is a lot easier for us to look at memes on Facebook for example because it has been created by someone else. Maybe we get so wound up about how many likes or comments we are going to get if we contribute to our media practices that we don’t even contribute at all. Instead of posting things for ourselves we do post for the likes of everyone else, we post things that they are going to like rather than what we may like and this all being for the likes and the comments. Many people have had social media accounts for many years of our lives that we almost check these accounts without realizing, I discussed earlier its more of an attachment, a tool to fill in time, to procrastinate maybe. This just strengthens my view that we do consume media practices at a higher rate than we contribute.
Over the space of one week we were given the task in blogging everyday about our social media usage. What media practises we were involved in on that day, whether that was making some of our own media or whether that was more viewing the media created by those around us. Then we would focus on how it was done, for example if we were uploading a photo to Instagram or Facebook, did we take it on our phones or did we use professional cameras to do so and did we link it to other social media accounts.
One of the main questions was why? I believe this question is individual, everyone is different, the ways in which some people use media can be contrasted to others. So this is what was identified in this activity, it was a journey of realisation of how much you really do use media online and how addicting it can be.
Day by day could be completely different, we were given the options to make up ourselves and that being whether we look over the day as a whole and base our media usage from there or you could zone in on one particular event on that day. For me i zoned in on one thing each day because otherwise it could have become extremely monotonous and all my posts would have been the exact same.
As a whole the exercise was interesting and it gave me a sense of how much i rely on my media usage everyday not only for entertainment but for learning purposes also.
Today I uploaded a photo from my travels in Bali onto Instagram. I was flicking through my photos from my trip and was just reminiscing on how much I loved it and then I thought I would share one of those photos onto my Instagram account. The photo which I will include below was taken at Potato Head Beach Club in Seminyak, this is one of the most amazing locations with an incredible back drop looking onto the ocean. The image had incredible lighting therefore didn’t need to be edited dramatically however, I just brightened the image up a little bit using the Instagram edit settings. In the upload process I linked it to my Facebook account using the available setting. I uploaded this picture to these accounts because at the time when I was actually in Bali I didn’t upload too many photos. So when I was browsing through my photos I thought that it would be one that I would want to share with my friends and family who have Instagram and then adding Facebook into the equation adds another dimension for more people having the ability to see it that may not be on Instagram.
I think it is super awesome these days how you can book restaurant reservations online now through a website link. After extensive options on where to go for dinner this coming Friday night for a 21st birthday dinner I finally decided to go with Ichi Ni in St Kilda. I went onto their website to find a phone number to book the table when I saw a link for ‘Book Now’ I was so happy I could do it on my phone and the instructions were super simple. Select how many people were dining, select whether it was for lunch or dinner and then select the available times. Online media practices are becoming a lot easier to use and navigate, you don’t need to be technology savvy to do this!
After having an extremely busy last week, today was my day to relax and chill out! During the day I looked through all my social media accounts such as Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat to see what my friends and family had gotten up to over the weekend. I used my phone to do this!. After having a good look at them all I replied to some snap chats mainly ones of those that included food of course haha! Seeing friends Snapchat’s at cafes and me always asking where that was because it looked amazing! I guess all of these accounts that we use are great as we can always see what our friends are doing or where they are going! Such a great source of entertainment.
Heres a picture of my confirmation for my reservation after using the online booking system!
Today I watched “FAVOURITE VEGAN CAFES IN BALI // watch us eat a lot of food!” by Tess Begg on youtube. My sister sent me the link to this video over text message as we were in Bali a month ago and went to some of these cafes therefore we had an interest in what foods Tess Begg liked too. It was also great to see the foods from the cafes that we didn’t get to eat! I watched the video on my phone as I said previously, it was a great way to see more videos by this author as they popped up under the watched video. The reason I watched this video online is because I clearly have a passion for food and nutrition therefore seeing these videos gave me inspiration to head back to Bali to eat more food! LOL! Its so great that youtube is so broad because it always has different videos that interest everyone, I definitely use it purely for entertainment purposes that it translates also into learning purposes as what I learn I then go on to put into play myself. I watched another video straight after the original video as it popped up and I thought it would be interesting. It was called “What I eat in a day #100” I loved it and watched it because it gave me new ideas on what I can cook so easily myself at home. After I watched these videos I went on to forward them over text message to another friend as I believed she would enjoy it also. I think that these media practices are so powerful because it joins people of similar interests together.
Today at work there was a new delivery of the most amazing guilt free choc mint and peanut butter crunch tarts from the incredible Conscious.cravings.co !!! So what better way then showing off the goodies that we received was to Insta story it of course. Using the Insta story is such a cool way of showing people what you are doing. It is extremely similar to Snapchat however I think it targets a wider range of people. This is probably because you’d have less people on Snapchat then you would be following you on Instagram. I used the boomerang filter which is very popular these days, then I tagged both Green Cup and Conscious Cravings Co and uploaded the sweet tasting little video! These tarts are pretty popular so I uploaded it to my Insta story because I knew that it would attract people to come in to the store and buy one. Which definitely did happen as I had friends replying to my Insta story saying “omg stop” and “I’m coming in” trust me when I say these tarts are so damn delicious. Today I was also In charge of music so we used our sonos account to play the music, using this online media practise allows you to get songs and playlists from both the sonos account as well as using Soundcloud. Sonos is an extremely handy gadget to have on your phone because all you need to do is be connected to Wi-Fi and then off you go. Playing music in a health food bar adds good vibes to the shops and gets people in a happy mood which is what we are all about.
Today when I wasn’t sure what I wanted for lunch I used one of my WhatsApp groups to help me decide. I used a pole of two different lunch ideas that the girls went on to say what they think I should have out of the two. Using Instagram, I searched two different accounts one being ‘Bawa’ and another being ‘Green Cup’ collecting a photo of two foods that I was tossing up between. I then sent them into the group chat for everyone to get an understanding of my two options. When I collected the photos all I had to do was screenshot the images using my iphone and then then upload them into the group chat. The reason I did this was because on this day I was so indecisive about what I felt like so therefore needed help and I also wanted my friends to see these delicious options. As I said in a previous blog our generation always needs to know what everyone is doing and we use social media to portray this (I think I am very guilty of this!). Its always so handy these days that most cafés and restaurants have Instagram pages so its so easy for us to scan through these pages to get never-ending options and inspo ideas on what to have for lunch! And breakfast and dinner! I am always looking at food online because I just love and have a passion to see the different cuisines one can eat and then also go on to cook themselves. I use these media practices as a source of learning guides on healthy eating and going onto health Instagram pages to get an idea on what I should be eating which definitely gives me inspiration on what I can go onto cook myself.
