Research Project #3

     1.    Estimate your weekly social media usage in minutes. Then measure your usage over the next week. How close was your estimate? 

 I estimate that I will use my social media for about 3 hours a week, I will track this throughout the week and use an app called screen time that is included with my phone. After about a week of monitoring my usage I looked at the end of the week for the total amount of time i was on social media. And boy was my estimate wayyy off. I found that in total I was on my phone for 49 hours and 13 of those hours were on a social media app. I was shocked when I saw these results because I had no idea that I use social media as much as I do.


     2    .How critical do you believe social media is to the advancement of your career or your life? 


    While social media has been linked to the cause of anxiety and depression it plays a huge role in our daily lives. A lot of things now a days are web based. And most businesses use apps to help promote and sell their product. It's our way to communicate with one another. Studies did show that people who weren't using social media often only about 10 minutes a day had a decrease in their depression while the ones using social media all day did not. However both groups using social media and not using it showed a decrease in their anxiety and fear of missing out otherwise known as FOMO. Studies also showed that neither groups showed improvement in social support, self-esteem, or autonomy and "self acceptance". As you can see social media is quite a tricky topic. There are even apps out there where you can connect to a therapist for text based sessions. There are apps that are designed to improve your mental health. There's pros and cons with social media.. however, keep in mind with everything that has a pro it usually has some kind of con as well. I believe social is very critical to my career and life. It's our way to communicate with the world and my career is based around technology. I believe it's critical because there are many opportunities when it comes to social media and the field I'm working towards is going to be computer based. I'm gonna need social media to promote and look for potential clients. It can also help to learn more and to help find tricks and tips to make my job easier and to keep in touch with the clients I'm going to be working with. Yes social media can cause depression. But I believe if you limit yourself to how much you use it then it could help to prevent the depression that sometimes comes a long with it.