Tag Archive for: instructor-none-2

Hello Everyone! For this weeks challenge in #UNIV349DC we were tasked with instructions to actually engage with other social media users via their respective sites. Since my professors narrowed down the list of sites we could use for this challenge I decided to focus all of my energy on Twitter. For this challenge I also created a new Twitter account @univstudent349 to make sure I keep my school stuff away from my personal stuff.

In order to engage in twitter I followed the usual hashtags #mentalhealth and #mentalhealthawareness. During this week I found that #mentalhealth was drawing more congruent results. The following screenshots are of the results that arose with #mentalhealth

The first screenshot is of twitter user @Rethink_ which I found was a invaluable resource for those suffering from mental health and specifically thoughts of suicide.I did not really repost anything from them specifically but I did find the resources and links they post to be very helpful when it comes those who need immediate help. The posts that really inspired me as I read the comments because this site really seemed to help those in need. When I say those in need I am referring to those people who feel the need to self harm and that benefit from talking to someone who can help alleviate their anxiety or depression.

The second screenshot is from a collaborative site called @BBCPanorama. At the moment that site has the top tweet with a link to an article by Maria Kane, Chief Executive of the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust. I also used my twitter account to retweet things from that user. Moreover, in the article Ms. Kane discussed in her site that mental health is in critical condition and severely needs the help of others to fund the push for more mental health availability. Ms. Kane is part of a trust titled Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust that attempts to serve those people who have mental issues that do not have their own means to reach mental health. The article describes how the Trust searches for people who need help and simply goes and does what it can to help.

After my engaging in both @Rethink_ and @BBCPanorama it has been reinforced in me how much mental health affects our country. Both users describe the extent of people that need help and how hard it is for these people to reach it.

My 24 hour disconnect began at 0930 on Saturday, October 24th. This day began with a surfing session out at Leadbetter beach in Santa Barbara. In the ocean, no one can be on their cell phone. Other surfers and paddle boarders were enjoying the beautiful day catching waves and chatting and smiling between sets. There is no need for technology (besides the use of photography to capture the beauty).

From there I went to enjoy a cinnamon roll and coffee with my boyfriend, Jason. Sitting there at the cafe, my boyfriend and the owner got into a conversation regarding a movie and Australia, in which neither of them could remember the name of the movie nor the location in Australia that it took place.  So how did they figure it out you ask? Google of course! What did we do before technology to solve these sort of problems?

After our coffee and cinnamon rolls, we took the bikes to the beach for Open Streets festival in Santa Barbara. Along Castillo street, the roads had been blocked off and vendors lined the streets. People were mostly engaged in the festivities at hand, but of course people everywhere were disengaged and focused on texting or connecting with others via cell phone. Whether or not this took away from their experience or not is tough to say. Probably depended upon how long they were engaged with their phone, and how often it posed as a distraction.

From the festival, we continued our adventure out into Solvang, where we  embarked into a corn maze at the Solvang Pumpkin Patch. Here, it was essential to take pictures because how often does one partake in a corn maze. Although I did not use my phone to take pictures, I was photographed using Jason’s phone.

Later, we went to the movies. To look up movie times, we once again used a telephone. Sure we could have used a newspaper or gone to an actual theater, but a particular movie might not be playing at a certain theater or finding a newspaper at 9 o’clock at night can be difficult. Overall, it is a difficult task to completely disconnect in this day and age. Technology enables the ease of information and documenting the present moment, although it can also take away from the present and be a constant distraction.

Hello everyone! This week I will present you the different levels I have escalated in order to become engage with the social issue my group is focusing on, college tuition rising. The process of lurking gave me valuable and essential weapons in order to obtain the social perspectives high college tuition. The experience for engaging was a little difficult. College tuition is an issue that affects a large amount of our population; however, not a lot of people expose it on the social media. I was really amazed to find posts like these on twitter. Although I never visited twitter, I was not able to find much information on different social websites. It was really interesting observing that political candidates like Bernie Sanders were addressing the topic through social media. I have gain so many perspectives throughout this amazing process of researching a topic through social media. I have gain a new way of viewing social media. My generation is so use to just using media as a form of entertainment; however, I have learn how media has revolutionized our way of changing the way we utilized social media and the purpose for it. Using media as a source to research a specific topic has provide me with a different perspective about social media. It is amazing how people is able to communicate with different individuals in order to expose a specific social issue or idea that is affecting a big portion of society. I will continue to engage myself in different posts about my social topic in order to accumulate important information from social media.

This chapter wasn’t too shocking for me.   I don’t think that TV shows or movies have to do with teenagers or unmarried women getting pregnant.  I think the TV shows Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant are focused on educating girls about why birth control is so important if they want to become sexually active.  Back then, they didn’t have TV shows like these, but numerous teens ended up getting pregnant. Also,  women and girls today have a lot more freedom now than 50 years ago.  This is because of birth control becoming legal and women don’t necessarily have to rely on a man anymore for an income.  Additionally, weddings have become immensely expensive; as a result, people are opting out of marriage to save money and just want to start having kids.

The sexualization of girls article was interesting.  I have noticed that young girls clothing stores today have a lot more revealing clothing, than when I was that age.  I think they believe it is okay to dress revealing because many stores they go to sell that type of clothing.  In my opinion, social media like snap chat and Instagram have escalated girls attitudes to want to dress sexy.  Many girls want to pose in revealing clothing in order to get as many “likes” on their pictures as they can.  I don’t even have those forms of social media because I don’t necessarily agree with what it is doing to young girls, or even young boys for that matter.

During the weekend we spent at Santa Rosa Island, I personallyfelt that I learned a lot of things. The experience as a whole was extraordinary to go through, the fact that we went through it together made it a little more special. There are so many things that are linked together as a whole and without one another they wouldn’t be the same. For example, plants and animals they co-exist because they need each other. One lives so the other can survive.

During our stay at the Island we got to see the way the faculty at the Island view Santa Rosa. What I really enjoyed was that they see the Island as their home and that they treat the Island with care. One of the thing I could truely see a deep connection was the plants and the animals. We learned a lot about the plants that grow on the Island with Cause. he took us to the nursery on the Island and we got to meet some people who were working on a very important enviromental project to help perserve many of the plants that have been dying because of the conditions humans had forced the Island to go through over the years. From what I could see they were really dedicated to their project and helping the Island grow more purple grass and to grow more pine trees because they’re going extinct on the Island were before there were so many pine trees and a lot of grass all over the Island. It’s really important for them to be successful in their project which is one of the reasons why they are giving it there all, since the drought hit the Island things have been getting worse and they’re trying their best to help restore the Island to it’s natural beauty that has been slowly fading away over the years. These to plants are very essential for the animals in the Island to survive. Most of the animals that live on the Island are birds, rodents, horses and foxes since all the other animals that have lived on the Island were brought purposely on the Island and have died and left their mark on the Island slowly destroying it over the years. The animals that remain aren’t destroying the Island they’re restoring it, for this to continue and for the Island to naturally change these animal need to remain on the Island to help contribute on the restoration of the Island. The birds need the trees, because that’s where they usually make there nests. And the horses need the grass to eat as well as the rodents that the birds usually feed on. The foxes on the Island are not predators they usually just eat plants, so plants are also essential for their survival.

Overall, even if we don’t see it at first there’s connections everywhere we go. We’re all connected to each other in ways we can’t even imagine because our connections are so deep that we usually don’t go looking for them. This trip really helped me open my eyes on how there’s more to ife than individuality because nothing is really an individual because we’re all connected to everything in some way whether it’s a small connection or a big one.