Author Archives: jtl

Guidelines for Comments.

When I think about a comment section on social media, I immediately think toxic. I think about the no-filter responses people give without any thought of repercussions.

Comment sections can be detrimental to some individuals’ mental health and well-being. Comments can be utilized to tear people down and isolate them.

In my opinion, over the years people have become more aware of the issues regarding the comment sections on differnt social media platforms. Although people have become more aware, the problem is still exists.

For example, when I was in middle school and high school there was a social media platform called ASKfm. ASKfm was an online platform where people could anonymously ask other people questions or leave comments on their pages. ASKfm was used to create cruel rating systems of peopel and to anonymously leave hateful comments.

From a greater perspective, the whole idea sounds harmless. However, in application, it was horrible.

Trying to navigate middle school alone is a challenging time, but adding social media bullying to the mix, made it a struggle.

The whole idea that people exude hate on the internet is exhausting. The more ideas of comments, the more I think of differnt social media platforms. For instance, I think of the early days of Instagram, where people would post and rate each others pictures and posts. For example, people would rate a photo out of 10 on how “attractive” someone looked in a photo. 

Social media comments are not built for success. 

When I think about Lyz’s (2022) story, I can understand and support why she would make those comments. Living in the world of social media platforms is difficult. Comments are a free space where people can comment whatever they feel.

The one slightly good perspective of comments is the opportunity to share information. For example, sharing recommendations for places to go, or commenting on where someone purchased a item. Therefore, using the comments as a place to distribute information.

On certain platforms, the idea of negative toxic comments is highly unlikely. To some extent, I believe trolls and scammers are not be looking at unpopular websites or media. Trolls and and scammers are more likely to spend time on platforms that generate more attention. 

For my website, I choose to have the comment section available. Based on my posts and the platform I created, I believe the idea of negative comment curating is low. Of course, if someone were to comment anything hurtful or toxic towards someone else, I would address it and remove it. For right now, I don’t think my website needs the comment section removed.

References 

Lyz. (2022, February 2). That’s how it works when you’re a woman on the internet. That’s How It Works When You’re a Woman on the Internet. Retrieved from https://lyz.substack.com/p/thats-how-it-works-when-youre-a-woman?s=r 

Costco? UnderRated.

In general, shopping is a struggle. 

Whether it’s grocery shopping, clothing shopping, furniture shopping, or anything else, it’s a struggle. Running from store to store for the greatest deal can be exhausting. Some stores are so far from one another, they are not in the same vicinity. It can be so time-consuming!

For me, shopping and running around used to be the worst. 

Until I started going to Costco. 

Costco has seriously been a lifesaver. 

When I moved out, I thought I couldn’t possibly shop at Costco. At Costco, you buy in bulk. I thought it would be WAY too much for myself and my partner. But wow, I was wrong. 

Costco has not only saved me money but time! 

I sometimes laugh at myself thinking about my newly found passion for Costco. I used to say to myself, I will never get excited about grocery shopping or buying furniture. But, here I am. 

I am now that person who will buy clothes at the same store I buy my groceries. 

Food-wise, my partner and I eat a ridiculous amount of food. I used to find it a real challenge to keep the fridge and cupboards stocked. Shopping for food at Costco has made a world of a difference. We buy fruit and vegetables, meats, crackers, cheese, and bread! 

I know, you may think, wow food must spoil. But surprisingly enough, we have yet to let food go bad. Keeping in mind, we do cook a lot of food that involves throwing everything in the fridge into a pot and calling that dinner, but still, we eat it.  

Shopping at Costco has allowed us to save money on food and allow us to buy more luxurious items with our savings. Sometimes we even buy organic! 

Grocery shopping at Costco also equals free samples, so that’s always a win. 

Clothing-wise, Costco has some great deals. I have found great clothes for everything. I have bought a layering jackets for hiking, everyday walking socks, and blouses for work. Who cares about the name brand, if it’s quality, I’d say it’s perfect! 

Furniture and fun items are something else. For instance, I went to Costco this weekend and I found the cutest Christmas snowman to add to my décor. The snowman is so cute, he is holding a little lantern. The funny part about buying my little snowman is I originally went in for groceries… Oh well, it was a deal.

Honestly, Costco is an adventure. I used to think I was too cool for Costco, but now I’m thinking Costco is too cool for me. 

The ONLY struggle with Costco is that you may come out with more than you bargained for. But honestly, that’s part of the fun. If you are struggling with shopping, I recommend trying a store like Costco. Make grocery shopping fun!

Costco? UnderRated.

A person posing with a shopping cart full of food outside of Costco
A person posing with a shopping cart full of items outside of Costco

Understanding Transmedia.

The idea of storytelling across multiple different platforms made me reflect on my website as well as the ones I view in my personal life. 

From my standpoint, creating my website has been a journey. I think it was more difficult than I anticipated. Throughout posting on the blog, I have been unintentionally incorporating different media within the blog. The problematic area within that is I used my platforms rather than creating platforms directly for the blog itself.

For example, in the second mini assignment based on incorporating a video, I strategized making the video using Instagram. I utilized the Instagram platform for editing and creating the video. Still, instead of posting it on that platform and tagging the link to my webpage, I saved them and uploaded it to a private YouTube page for easier viewing. 

Similarly, I followed that same pattern when I created a remix, I used a template I saw from TikTok, created it on Instagram and then uploaded it onto YouTube. From there, the same pattern continues. I made the gif assignment using a gif template app and then downloaded and redirected where I uploaded it.

To incorporate transmedia into my website, I should have been creating a different platform to not only upload the content but also allow other users to use it. 

When I think about the reading of Pókemon as the transmedia storyline, I think about several other platforms that replicate similar processes for storytelling. For example, similar ideas like marvel comics, became movies, shows, action figures, and more. It demonstrates different variations and platforms of the same thing. 

When I was thinking about transmedia on a social media scope, I thought about celebrities. Several celebrities have their websites/blogs, clothing lines or makeup lines, along with their social media platforms. These platforms help promote the celebrity and gain social media attention and awareness.

It’s interesting because prior to completing the reading on transmedia and attending the lecture, I never thought about the scope. Transmedia has a large impact on the delivery and dispersal of information in the media world. Therefore, I believe it is widely important to have multiple platforms to generate awareness.

All Travelled By Claire?

PEER REVIEW THREE: reviewing marketability. featuring: all travelled by claire.
A screenshot of Claire's home screen of the website.
A screenshot of Claire’s home screen on the website.

For the third peer review activity, I got the opportunity to browse and look at Claire’s website: All Travelled By Claire

At first glance, the home page is well-organized and aesthetic to look at. The picture featured on the homepage immediately caught my attention because it is from Greece. From a fellow traveller’s perspective, I was immediately interested. 

The title and home screen of Claire’s website clearly state the website is for travel photography and travel resources. From a SEO standpoint, I think it is good marketing as it highlights keywords for the search engine to curate and find (Hollingsworth, 2021). The page captivates audiences who love to travel. 

I really like the home page; it is very clean and organized. The simplicity and natural colours add calmness to the webpages setting. 

Before I began interacting with Claire’s webpage, I thought about my own digital relationship with travel. I thought about the different photos I would take compared to those of others. Therefore, I was interested in seeing what Claire decided to take photos of and decided to upload (“Digital Breadcrumbs: The data trail we leave behind us”, 2023). 

When I clicked on the travel photo option button, it took me to a page labelled “an interactive photo diary”. The page featured two pictures of a similar beautiful sunset overlooking the water. From the photos, I could see the captivated beauty. Overall, I really enjoyed the colour scheme from the sunset. Based on the photos, I assumed the location of travel was possibly Greece, or somewhere warm. 

Although the photos were beautiful, I was missing some information. Unfortunately, there was no story or information regarding the photo’s location and or meaning. I loved the idea of the photo diary, but it seems like photos are missing as there are only two pictures available to see. I think there is a lot of potential for this page despite the missing information.  

Next, I explored the about page. When I went to the about page on the webpage, I found a lot more information. 

I really appreciated the about page as it outlined some information on Claire. I was able to understand Claire’s vision for the website. From my perspective, the website was focused on Claire’s passion for travelling and was intended to be demonstrated through the cultivation of travel photos and fun tips (Basu, 2020). I felt that the about page provided a lot of personality into who Claire is. 

A big thing I would personally focus on is adding some public content that includes travel tips and photos with information. 

Overall, I really liked the intended look of the website. I think the intentions of the audience are clear and precise. The website includes good key search words and is headed in the right direction. I think the website has good potential. 

Thank you for sharing Claire! 🙂

References

Basu, T. (2020, September 3). Digital Gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet. MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/03/1007716/digital-gardens-let-you-cultivate-your-own-little-bit-of-the-internet/

Digital Breadcrumbs: The data trail we leave behind us. (2016, May 23). Pod Academy. Retrieved November 19, 2022, from http://podacademy.org/podcasts/digital-breadcrumbs-our-data-trail/ 

Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 6). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs seo. Search Engine Journal. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close 

Figuring Out SEO.

Before this week, I honestly had no idea what SEO was or how it even worked. I had no idea of its importance or any idea of how it influenced the internet.

The biggest and most important step in understanding SEO was knowing that it was an acronym. SEO is for search engine optimization (Hollingsworth, 2021).  Before I went on to the readings, I wanted to understand each component of that. 

I know it sounds silly to not understand the components of SEO, but honestly, I had to break it down. So, I took each word in the acronym and broke it down. 

My definitions: S.E.O

Search: to look for something or someone. It’s the process of looking. 

Engine: something that is a moving part. Meaning, it facilitates something. 

Optimization: something that provides the best or most effective possible outcome. 

After I was able to create my definitions and break down the word slowly, I was able to read and understand the articles. 

Essentially SEO helps facilitate, promote, and benefit the growth of a company/brand (Hollingsworth, 2021). Hollingsworth (2021) outlines 15 reasons why SEO is important to a company/brand by reasoning it promotes growth and awareness. 

I found the process of understanding SEO interesting because I was able to break down the whole wording into my own definition and apply it to the readings.

I find that if I ever am confused or stuck on the wording of something, I find I just have to break it down. I don’t know why, but I sometimes have a short mental block when I come across wording that is unfamiliar to me. Therefore, I have to take a step back and look at it in small doses to easily break it down. Once I do that, I have no problem understanding it. 

After reading Hollingsworth’s (2021) article and sitting in a lecture, I can understand the importance of SEO. I find I was able to understand how it impacts a user’s experience with the content online. 

References

Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 6). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs seo. Search Engine Journal. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close 

Social Media Detox? UnderRated.

Technology is addicting, especially when it comes to social media. It is hard to go a day without logging in or checking in on various websites and platforms.

An interesting feature on my cell phone and laptop is screen time. My cell phone and laptop notify me of how much time I spend on my screen and the time allocated to each application

When I think about my screen time, I find it almost alarming. I find in the summer and on vacation, my screen time is so minimal. However, I find in my day-to-day busy life, I am on my screen for significantly more time. When I feel stressed or overwhelmed, I find I gravitate to surfing the web and scrolling on social media as a distracting tactic, allowing me to procrastinate my time. 

As I was thinking about my screen time in more depth, it brought me back to a time when I had no wireless internet on my phone. Back then, I was not ever able to check social media platforms unless I was at home or a place with wireless internet. I did not get internet on my cell phone till my second year of university when I needed the internet for work.

After considering my current screen time, I decided I was going to do a social media detox. 

I have done a detox unintentionally before or have done one when I was away on vacation. I have done several days without my cell phone and connection to the “real world” as I love backpacking and hiking trips, where for obvious reasons, there is no cell service. However, I have never done a detox with social media and technology while in town.

Before completely going cold turkey on all social media, I had to think of a plan. I knew before I started, I needed to do this within reason. For instance, I knew I needed access to my email and phone calls for work purposes.

However, everything else I decided I was going to cut back.

For my cell phone, I decided to temporarily delete all social media applications, such as Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Snap Chat, Visco, and YouTube. For my computer, I decided to limit my access to only my work email and SFU’s canvas page. 

I decided to pre-emptively let some people know that I was planning on disconnecting my phone and computer usage so that they knew the best way to get a hold of me was through calling. From there, I just went for it.

Originally, I wanted to try a week or 5 days, however, based on my decided timing, I could only really allow for 3 days. So, I decided to try it on the weekend.  

It was quite weird. I found I would look at my phone as if something exciting was going to happen. I slowly realized, without social media platforms I did not need my phone throughout the day, except for school and work.

The first day was okay. I didn’t feel like I was not missing anything. On the second day, I was quite curious to know what was happening with everyone. By the third day, I had gotten semi-used to it but was still wanting to scroll when I was supposed to be doing my email for the day. I felt like I was able to see how much I typically gravitate to looking and scrolling on my phone. 

It was an interesting experience. I found I stayed busy with my day-to-day chores and activities. I found myself checking my phone less and less as I got used to having no social media access on my phone. I found I was able to get my work done a lot faster and concentrate my time more effectively. I enjoyed that aspect as I was able to have more free time.

Moving forward, I decided to limit my social media time on my phone and laptop. I have set up a setting that only allows for half an hour each day of social media time. That way, when I am scrolling or looking at social media it hopefully makes my time on it more intentional rather than just passively scrolling. 

A cell phone screen showing the different options to limit and track the type of screen-time on a cell phone.
A cell phone shows 3 screen options to limit and track the type of screen time on a cell phone.

Overall, it was a nice break from social media, even if it was just a couple of days. I found it was harder to be cut off when I was in town compared to when I have done it in the past on vacation. However, I feel like it was a good time to reconsider how much time I wanted to spend on social media.  

Personally, a social media detox allowed me to reflect on my time spent on social media. I was able to re-evaluate how much time I spend on it and how I want to change it. I think was a great experience. I found it not as intimidating as I thought.

Disconnect, try it out!

Social Media Detox? UnderRated. 

The Digital Footprint.

Leaving a digital footprint almost seems unavoidable. Anywhere you go, someone always asking for something… especially when you go shopping.

I found after reading Norman’s (2016) post on trying to avoid leaving a digital trail, completely relatable. Almost every shopping mall and or store asks you for your email, your phone number, and or some type of contact information. I find it nearly impossible to have a trip to the mall that does not include some type of contracting information question.

Everything needs to be digitalized.

Some stores try to promote their digital footprint by indicating they will send deals and discounts to the contact address. Therefore, if you are willing to give stores the contact information then you specifically will benefit from receiving secret information.

With that, I feel like the idea of using or giving digital information has become the preferred method.

I have come to realize, that the idea of using cash at some stores almost seems to be ridiculous. Many times, I have offered cash to the store attendees and have found they almost looked surprised, like “really, you want to pay with cash?”. Honestly, I have gotten to the point where every time I want to pay with cash, I seem to always ask the working attendee if it’s okay if I pay with cash as if cash is a foreign payment.

With the strong push for consumers to pay by credit and with debit cards, cash almost seems like a burden. I find it becomes awkward as some employees make it feel like it is an inconvenience. Several card payment options include simple tap features or slide features, making transactions quick and easy.

To some extent, I think the peak of Covid-19 had a lot to factor into avoiding cash payments. Cash payments require a type of contact exchange. Thus, stores were trying to minimalize physical exchanges. Although I understand that contactless payments avoid physical exchanges it makes it hard to reverse the mindset that cash exchanges are bad.

Now, I have found that several stores and companies now push for contactless payments. Stores have created this by having signs indicating a preference for consumers using a card method of payment or having signs indicating they don’t accept cash payments. Therefore, pushing consumers to leave digital footprints on basic transactions.

Overall, I find digital footprints unavoidable. They are everywhere.

References

Norman, S. (2016, March 7). Trying not to drop breadcrumbs in Amazon’s store. Publishing @ SFU. https://publishing.sfu.ca/2016/03/breadcrumbs-of-data/

Processing Technology.

Last week, I was working on making a remix. Honestly, I had no idea what to do with the word remix. When I thought about remixing, all I could think about was music. Music is where the artists blend two or more songs to create a new sound.

Thompson’s (2022) article explores the acceleration of the internet and the changing of the word lingo. From Thompson’s perspective, I can understand the confusion. I feel like the new slang words in social media are constant. I find I am constantly learning and adapting to the newest and trending sayings.

Yes, the word “remix” is not exactly new, but the idea to remix things other than music, is a foreign idea to me.

To gain insight into remixes, I set out to do some research. 

When I first went beyond a remixing song in the way of collaboration, I thought about remixing lyrics. Meaning, adding new words, rhythms, and rhymes to the popular trending lyrics. Thus, putting a twist on Gen Z slang (Thompson, 2022). What I quickly realized was trying to remix music was out of my realm of expertise. 

Next, I thought about poems and making a collage using only old magazines and newspapers. When I thought about this concept, it brought up a lot of memories of my old childhood bedroom. I use to cover the walls and hang the weirdest collages from my ceiling just so I could be surrounded by my interests.

All through this idea seemed great in theory, (who doesn’t love a good collage?) I realized that I have not owned a glue stick in YEARS. So…

Onto the next idea. 

While I was flipping through my camera roll on my phone, I started laughing at all my old videos and pictures. I was getting a good laugh at watching the memories back. One video that I watched a couple of times was about my parents finding out I got a tattoo.

When I rewatched the video and saw my parent’s facial expressions I knew I wanted to remix it. 

When I was thinking about the different ways of remixing, I could just hear a specific TikTok audio. (Oh No).

Before merging the two, I could tell the original audio mimicked the TikTok song. I knew the video and the audio would match up and create something funny.

Next, all I had to figure out was how to combine the video and the audio.

TikTok seemed to be the place.

Although TikTok is a trending app, I feel completely intimated by it. As Thompson (2022) indicates the internet world is changing for the new generation. 

After playing around with the audio and the video footage, I was able to crop the pieces accordingly to make a concise video. 

The original video contained a whole introduction and then the revealing of the tattoo. Whereas, the remixed version only showcases a snippet of my parent’s (mainly my mom’s) initial reaction to seeing my tattoo.

Overall, I found using different technology outlets challenging as it was new to me. However, after trial and error, the process produced a funny remix. Without the assignment, I would have not gotten the opportunity to remix the video.

References

Thompson, D. (2022, May 16). Is the internet changing how we talk about slang words? In The Know. https://www.intheknow.com/post/slang-words-tiktok-gen-z-linguist/?guccounter=1