Nowadays, more and more people are using social media. It seems that social media has become a way to communicate with everyone. Social network sites were built on online communication, such as e-mail and Internet chat (Marshall 2010, p.38). This blog will illustrate how I use social media to create my own online identity.
‘social media’ by Sean MacEntee (CC BY 2.0)
I started to use social media when I was in junior high school. At that time, our teacher suggested us to use social media apps to create a class group. This group was created for us to exchange learning methods. It was my first time that I had a basic understanding of social media. Then I found that social media could be used not only for learning, but also for sharing my life. For example, I can post some pictures about myself, my family members and my friends. I can also use video chat to communicate with friends who are living in other places.
‘Instagram logo on gradient header’ by Frank Buschman (CC BY 2.0)
After I came to Melbourne, I met a lot of foreign friends. They recommended me some interesting social media apps that I ever used before, such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. For this blog, I will focus on describing how I created my Instagram account.
‘Screenshot of my Instagram profile’
When my foreign friends told me about Instagram, I decided to create an account. I chose a selfie photo as my profile picture, and this picture was chosen very carefully. In order to give my followers a good first impression, I chose the most successful selfie I thought I had taken before, which was a picture of me wearing like a rabbit. The reason why I chose a selfie photo as my profile picture was simple. This is my own account, and I think I should at least show myself to others whether they know me or do not know me. I need to let my followers know who I am. Then for the account name, I used my English name and my true family name. I chose to use my English name because this is basically an English version of social media platform. Finally, for the description of myself, I wrote ‘Student, Live in China, Study in Melbourne’, I also added two emojis for the two places contained in this sentence in order to make it look more interesting. These are the basic information about myself, I need to tell my followers where I am from, what job I am doing, and where I am studying.
After finishing these steps, my Instagram account was completely created. Then I started to post some pictures that I took during my daily life, such as the place I went and some photos of me and my friends. This is my way to maintain online relationships, I like to show my real life to my followers. As I post some photos, they could do some comments under the post, and I will reply to them. This is actually a kind of online communication.
‘Screenshot of one of my Instagram posts’
After I entered college, I started to use Twitter for my courses. Then I realized that the use of Twitter is basically similar to the use of Instagram. I can also post some pictures on Twitter, and for myself, the only difference between Twitter and Instagram is that I do not use Instagram for my course needs. The following pictures are the screenshots of two of my tweets.
The first screenshot is a photo of the sky that I took, and I named it the title ‘Beautiful Sky’. This is a photo that I use for sharing my daily life. Then the second screenshot is a post related to one of my courses, and it is also related to my personal interest, which is food. This picture that I posted was taken by the other person, so I provided the link to the original website and also the name of the photographer and the copyright.
However, the use of Twitter is not just posting some pictures. Twitter has been able to capture a slightly different constitution of connection through its short messaging, linking to other sites of interest and becoming part of a more mobile on-line culture (Marshall 2010, p.39).
In the future, I will post many more pictures about my life on Instagram and many more links that is related to my personal interests and courses on Twitter.
Reference List
Marshall, PD 2010, ‘The promotion and presentation of the self: celebrity as marker of presentational media’, Celebrity Studies, vol. 1, no.1, p.35-48, retrieved 15 December 2019, <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/19392390903519057?needAccess=true>.
Sean MacEntee 2010, social media, photograph, retrieved 15 December 2019, <https://flic.kr/p/8WnyVB>.
Frank Buschman 2017, Instagram logo on gradient header, retrieved 15 December 2019，<https://flic.kr/p/ZUju2c>.
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