Archive for date: November 3rd, 2015

Hello Everyone! For this weeks challenge we continued in our attempt to engage in social media for our respective topics. My topic as usual has been mental health and instead of just retweeting things I found interesting on my topic I decided to look for people that were doing important work for Mental Health. Here is how that went.

For my topic of Mental Health I hopped on the hashtag #mentalhealth and looked at the list of users that would pop up. Here is a picture of the top results.

If you look at the picture you can tell that many of the main accounts that are ran for mental health do not have a clear author and are some organization. Since the majority of the accounts on the top list did not have a face to them I was hesitant on sending them a message in fear that I would get something automated. As I continued to search the hashtag however I found a user that was very interesting. When I ran into the account by user @garyhgoodridge, I read his bio and learned that he was an MMA fighter in the UFC and an amateur boxing champion. The reason he popped into my feed; unfortunately, was because he suffered from permanent brain damage suffered from his career as a fighter. Due to his brain injury he suffers from depression and other mental health issues. I tweeted at him asking if he suffering from mental health has impacted his love for the sport but as of now he only liked it and not replied.

Another noteworthy item I found while attempting to engage was this article about people coming together to end the stigma on mental health.

The screenshot above is the article I mentioned and it tells how Canada has come together to implant a system to improve mental health. They claim that in Canada mental health is the 3rd highest reason that people call out of work and if they were to implement some sort of system to improve the overall mental health it would actually be profitable. Other than this article I also retweeted another tweet about another group attempting to do the same thing and I found in both interesting and wonderful that people in different countries are coming together to finally make a difference on the mental health issue. Thanks for reading! See you guys next week.

Hello everyone! this week I will continue and build on the concept from last week. It has been an exciting roller coaster to experience how amazing it is to search a specific topic from the social media perspective. I have comment it on different blogs but I just keep on learning so many new perspectives about how beneficial social media websites are when used for the right things. As I moved on from lurking and actually engaging in social media I feel more involve with the topic I’m searching for. High college tuition is the cause of stress for a lot of students and getting the social media perspectives has been really interesting. The only obstacle I encounter was perhaps the lack of familiarity with specific social medias. I personally do not use many social medias,  but encountering my self with having some trouble finding professional and reliable information allowed me to have a really essential reflection. I came with the conclusion that my generation was raised with social media always being around; therefore, we tend to see it as just a source to be social when in reality social media is far from being  just an entertainment source. I decided to reflect back on how I’m engaging my self and I decided to apply some changes. I decided to read my group members’ blogs in order to obtain more tips and even sources to stay engage and obtain beneficial information about the topic of high college tuition. My goal to become really engage with the topic of high college tuition is still in progress and I really look forward to find out how this experiences changes my perspectives. I may not be done with this great experience but I am sure that I have change my perspective about social media in a really positive way.

HI y’all. So I totally changed up my approach this week, because I wanted some actual responses. I feel that, unless I am connected within a certain social circle, or have some sort of reputable standing, I’m otherwise going to be somewhat ignored. So what I did was messaged a few people from my social circle, or previous social circles on Facebook that were talking about the refugee crisis. I told them, “Hey I’m doing a sort of a study for one of my university classes on the refugee crisis, can I ask you a few questions?” I got a few responses, and of course, I still used Twitter to show some cool links I’ve found.

So I reached out to a couple of my friends, I’ll call one Stan. I used to work with him at Papa Johns and we were able to talk on the phone after initially talking on Facebook. Stan is from Pakistan, and he is a 24 year old student who is in the medical program in the Caribbean Isles. He moved to the U.S with his family when he was 13, but most of his other family members still live in Pakistan. He is of Muslim faith, yet he is very westernized. Since he and his family members have seen the effect that military warfare has on people, as well as severe civil unrest, he told me that he completely understands where refugees are coming from. He told me that, “People are just trying to survive in any way that they can, and it is morally wrong to refuse refuge for these people.” I believe that he is correct, people should not be held back from trying to better their lives, and in this case, save their lives and the lives of their family. He told me that, “My family is only worrying about paying their mortgage, and the refugees are worrying about their lives every day.” It’s powerful, for instance I’m worrying about my grades and what I will buy my loved ones for Christmas, and people on the other side of the globe have much more severe worries then I have. This is evident in plenty of the articles that I found. People are crossing treacherous waters, and many of them are barely escaping with their lives. The least countries can do is offer them refuge.

Another one of my compadres who I met in High School posted a link to a video in September about the refugee crisis. I found his post when I searched the refugee crisis on Facebook. In his post, he said “Very painful to watch and to know that this is a tiny percentage of people who live with this every single day. What are we doing as humans when a 13 year old is absolutely defeated and is asking for something that should never have to be asked for. Breaks my heart.” The video is about the drowned Syrian child from back in September, and it’s really powerful. I commented on this as well, but didn’t receive a response yet. Video is here.

I tried to contact people that I haven’t met online, and I unfortunately didn’t receive anything back. I’m trying to build a Twitter base, but it’s taking some time. Overall, I think that to get a social movement going, or a group, you need to start small. Start within your friends and family, or colleagues who share similar opinions. Like that one Ted Talk explained that all a leader needs is one good follower, I think that’s how it starts. So that is why I reached out to people I know who don’t go to school here, and who may know something about the refugee crisis. It was engaging, and quite helpful.

Sunset at C street

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