What sticks out most in my mind is how I've learned about my own online behaviors. The very first assignment we received was to give up Facebook, texting, and to have only limited emailing for one week. Addiction is funny, people always convince themselves that they can stop doing something whenever they want to. As my classmates moaned and groaned to Dr. Corso, I had confidence that I would do just fine. Boy, was I wrong. I spent the week longingly playing with my phone and creeping over my roommate's back to try to catch a glance of the Facebook homepage. I have only had a Facebook account for three years, but this assignment showed me how it had become a habitual action in my everyday life. As the semester progressed, I made one discovery after the next about how dependent I had become on social networking, texting, and other forms of communicating online. Although the realization has hit me that I rely too much on electronic forms of communication, it hasn't really changed my habits. I figure the first step is "admitting you might have a problem," but I haven't made it past that point.
As much as I don't want to further my addiction to communication online, COM301 has showed me that there are resources online that have the potential to benefit my future career. Joining LinkedIn was one of the smartest moves I've made during this past semester. Although I don't have many people in my network yet, I can slowly start putting together a profile and expanding my career options for the future in a way that I would never have been able to without this social network. Not only will it broaden my chances at finding a career, it will also enhance the career I end up in. Sites like Flickr, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter are all remarkably popular. The importance of reaching customers and clients who spend time on these sites is high. We even talked about a sight were I could potentially go and look at other people's power point presentations and post my own, which would allow me to find and share new ideas. There are endless possibilities to keep in mind when it social networks benefitting my future career.
Going into this class I really didn't know what to expect. It was one of my first communications classes and it has made me look forward to future semesters of studying various types of communication. This class hasn't changed my life, or helped me make some brilliant discovery about communications that I had no clue about before. It has however, made me aware. I stuck to the norm of Facebook and Instant Messaging and COM301 helped me see social networking outside of the stereotype I had in my head. I have become aware of my own usage of social networking, aware of how I can use social networking in a more efficient manner, and what some of the pros and cons of online communicating are. I have become aware of of how I spend my time online and what changes I need to make. I have become aware of all of these aspects, and now its my decision on whether or not to turn this awareness into action.
