Nothing Left to Lose

This post is dedicated to those out in the world who are currently stressed due to finals, moving in or out, your friends, your family, traffic, how Congress is handling things, or anything else in life. This post's goal is not to make you feel bad or worse about whatever is going on in your life, but its purpose is to help you move on from what is making you feel sad, upset, frustrated, and flat out done. I am writing it because as much as I look at those around me and see them close to tears because of what life is throwing at them right now, I am writing it because I myself am done. Done with the shit. Done with everything that this semester has made me deal. And I am writing this to show everyone how my feelings of sadness, anger, exacerbation, and doneness have left me, and for one reason only.

I wish I wouldan know before senior year that I need to stop blaming everyone else and take responsibility for my own life.

This probably seems harsh - because it kind of is. But it is 100% true.

I am not going to lie at all - I have had the hardest and least fun semester of my life. Every class that I took was difficult and required more work than ever before. I had readings and even when I had time to read there were so many that I was behind in every class. Although I finished every assignment, I might have finished them an hour before they were due. I didn't put as much effort into things because there was so much and no time unless I wanted to pull an all-nighter every night.
I have been working over 20 hours a week, taking away time from everything else. I love my internship and am staying there for the spring, but sometimes when I've had a lot going on I've just wanted to not go in and work on the those things. But this internship is something I enjoy doing and its something I could see myself doing for a career. So I'd push through that and go.
My extracurriculars haven't been easy. There is always another problem, always something that needs to be solved. I am a dictionary on procedure and rules, so I'm always asked to help. Which I do because I know that I can help. I've been through a lot in life and through my involvement in so many different things, that when a situation arises I am able to think on my feet and help put a rest to that situation. However, these things have taken away from the joy of the extracurriculars I am in and have taken away time from other aspects of my life like school and social things. But since I love being involved in things not work or academics, I do it all and help all I can. There is little thanks, but I continue to push on.
It's been a rough semester socially, with having no time to do social things because of the others. The few times I have gone out, I get tired so early and leave so I can sleep since I rarely do that as well. I feel like I've missed out on a lot and never thought first semester senior year would be this hard.

So readers, that is my semester - but do you wanna know why currently I am smiling and I am one of the happiest people you will meet today? No, it's not because in my 2 assignment master's class I got a B+. No, it's not because I am done with finals. No, it's not because I am going home for a month on Saturday.

It's because I've realized all of my complaints and everything that I have stressed over wouldn't be as bad if I stopped complaining and took responsibility for everything in my life. Not every situation that happens and that has caused me pain was under my control - in reality more of them than not were not even close to under my control - but it's how I reacted to them that I had control over. And I realized that my reactions this semester have not always been the right way that I know how to react.

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. My realization that my life would be better if I reacted better to it means that I can improve that and move on. Life isn't easy and it is not supposed to be. It's supposed to be hard and you're supposed to make mistakes and cry and laugh and learn from everything that happens to you. As I look around at people right now, I am amazed at their reactions and how if they were to change them and be responsible for that how much better they would feel right now. Instead of complaining and bitching and making others around you uncomfortable and this and that and more, take a few minutes and look at what you are doing. Is it really helping you? Or is it making everything worse? For me, when I did that, I realized that it was making it much worse than it was better.

For example - I last night was dealing with an issue that arose in one of my extracurriculars and didn't have as much time to review for my #smpasocial media final that was this morning. I was angry and irritable about this and wanted everyone to leave me alone. But I took a few minutes and thought to myself, "Self, how can I make myself feel better about this situation? How can I improve what is going on within myself?" I came to the conclusion that I needed to go to sleep to feel better and not think about everything, and I woke up a little earlier to review.

Another example - my back always hurts. Always. It just does. Earlier in the semester it annoyed me and hurt so much that I would be in a bad mood all day. However, I discovered that instead of complaining about it and not do anything, that I should stand in the shower an extra few minutes, turn the heat up a little and put my back against the water, and to loosen up my muscles a little. It didn't help that much, but at the end of the day me making a small change in my attitude based on a behavioral change made all the difference.

It's up to you how you react to the stress of finals, your relationships, if your cable is out, etc. It's up to you how you make your life improve. Anyone who is reading this might be college age, so here is advice for you. Deal with your life. By yourself. No one else can make decisions for you, they can only give you advice and guide you. Don't ask your parents to do things for you - you're too old for that. Don't think that things are going to change without making a change yourself. Figure out what those changes need to be and run with them. Improve your attitude. Improve your reactions. Improve your life.

I have one last final suggestion - remember why you do things. Remember why you go to college. Remember why you have that friend who continues to annoy you recently. Remember why you joined that organization. When life gets you down, use those things that have in the past made you happy to make you happy again. Make sure you thank them later, but also use them now to improve your life.

It begins with you and also ends with you. If you are super stressed out and don't know what to do - try what I've suggested. You have nothing left to lose, right?

I apologize again if this post sounded harsh, but literally everyone on GW's campus currently looks super duper stressed out!

Always,
Caroline

With A Little Help From My Friends

This is my final project for social media.

 I'll begin with a short video that we've all probably seen at some point.

Tom Cruise, strangely, has it right when it comes to social media and self-improvement. "Help me help you." It's really as simple as that. Social media sites that are mainly used for entertainment purposes, the "help me," can also be used to better people's lives in so many ways, the "help you" part. 

The self-improvement movement is a highly lucrative, successful, and broad movement. I bet you didn't know that the "self-improvement" market makes over $9.6 billion a year in 2005, meaning that it is probably well above that by now (Thomas). It spans years and years of development, from diets and exercise regiments to videos training you on job interviews to people getting hired to help people "self" improve. There's even been books written about how the self-improvement movement is a "sham" (the link is to the book "Sham" by Steve Salerno about how the movement is a sham - click my links throughout the post and you'll see they're linked to fun things mostly!). However, the self-improvement movement took a turn when the internet was invented and when Web 2.0 was rolled out.

Web 2.0 is, for those of you who don’t know, the format that the internet is today. It introduced Flash, making videos and animation possible online. It made it possible for the internet to be used as a form of communication, linking people to each other instead of just having information on it. There is user generated content, anyone can contribute, and social media is a main example of the Web 2.0 ideas (Kaplan and Haenlein).

Since Web 2.0’s debut, interactivity and what we now refer to as “social media” sites have exploded. I feel like I get an invite to a new one almost every day. (try pinterest.com its awesome!)

But what Web 2.0 did to the self-improvement movement was expand it even further. To me, self-improvement isn't just health based. It's not just getting in shape, getting mentally stable and emotionally happy. Because of all the information we have access to, and because of the sharing of information through social media sites, self-improvement has become anything that you are doing to improve your life - from the old thinking of what it is to new thinking such as choosing a new hairdryer because of the customer ratings and finding your next vacation spot through a travel blog. However, it is important to note though, that the overall goal of all of these little things, like helping yourself choose a new blow dryer, do have the overall goal of improving oneself in the physical, emotional, mental, and economical way the self-improvement movement focuses on as the APA believes. So what social media has done is created smaller, simpler steps to get to the larger picture, instead of tackling the issues mostly head on like many years ago through direct contact.

I wanted to begin with a summary of how I've used social media as a self improvement tool, as something to help make my life better, which will put into perspective some of my thoughts on the topic as a whole. In addition, my usage will show the vastness of what self-improvement through social media can be. Disclaimer: Everything I say about my own life is sadly true. All of it.


I guess I started using the internet for “self-help” or "self-improvement" purposes whenever I first got my own email address, which was around 4^th grade. I’m not proud of my Backstreet145@aol.com email address, but it doesn’t exist anymore so judge all you want and don't email me there because I won't get it. Anyway, I remember searching for everything from “why is my eye twitching?” to “how do I get a boy to like me?” to tons or other things. Never before had finding information been this easy, especially for a 4^th grader/10 year old. 

The Backstreet Boys were obviously the inspiration for my first email address...

Obviously, the internet is a vast place of information. But even when I was little, before the days of Facebook and Twitter, there were the beginnings of those social media sites we know today. There were message boards and comment sections at the end of articles. There were chat rooms and instant messaging. By the time I reached my teens, there was Myspace that I used, and Friendster used by those a little older than me. These things made it easy to access anything, especially things people were using to better themselves in any way they could. Why, suddenly, was there all this interactivity between people, leading people to be able to find the answers to their questions, especially regarding self-help questions? The answer is Web2.0 which I mentioned earlier.

When I started using the internet to answer my life questions, it was something extremely easy, simple, and free, which were reasons why I went to websites for answers and didn't and still don't really contribute to that large number.. Over AIM (AOL Instant Messanger) when a friend put something in her “info” that seemed like she was mad at me (oh the world of a pre-teen girl…), I’d go to a site like beinggirl.com which had a large message boards section with basically every subject matter some adolescent girl would want to know and I’d find the answer to my “how do I stop my best friend from posting things on her AIM info when she’s mad at me?” There was also sections on the AOL homepage dedicated to self-help categories; the kids, pre-teen, and teen accounts even had easy to click tabs where you could go to a message board.

The homepage of this site - the one I used to go to for all my life questions - hasn't changed all that much in the years since I've used it. Mostly, its just gotten more high tech looking, but the colors and general layout remain the same.

The little AIM logo that was such a big part of my pre-teen and early teen years.

Looking back, the things that I searched for weren’t exactly substantial life questions. They were things a 12-ish year old girl would be searching for, like my AIM info question. I remember looking on Youtube when I was still in that phase of life looking for “how to walk in heels” (even though I’ve done that basically every year since then…) and “how to have a perfect British accent.” Many of the popular topics were all about, not to be cliché, but sex, drugs, and rock and roll. To those in my generation, those were the important things in our lives. The “self-help” topics and questions that those older use social media for, the things that are more important like mental and physical health, weren’t yet important in my life, but I still had some burning questions. And the internet, and social media sites, had the answers.

However, there was another reason why I turned to social media for answers at a young age instead of going to, oh I don’t know, my parents. It was because I was sort of embarrassed by some of my questions and didn’t want anyone to know that I was going to AOL search or Yahoo! to answer those questions of burning desire, like "why doesn't Ben like me" or even "how do I tell my mom my cramps are really bad and I think I am dying?" In addition, I didn’t want my parents to know some of the things that I was searching for (like, for example, "when is the right time to start wearing a bra"), just mostly because I didn’t want them knowing what was going on in my life or the details of my friendships or the one week long relationships with boyfriends that I had/wished I had.

It had to do with privacy. Back then, you could go on and erase your history of webpages went to easily. And, especially with myself on AOL, my privacy settings were set for only me and the “parent account” to see – so deleting made my embarrassing questions disappear into cyberspace where no one knew what I was asking. However, now, that has changed in sorts – but I’ll get to that later.

Privacy setting page for AOL - I and many others used this back in the day to hide things from our parents, siblings, and everyone. Even today, people still use privacy settings to hide what they're doing on their computers.

As I got older, reaching my teens and now my twenties, I’ve used social media for a lot more important self-improvement and help aspects. Self-Assurance and motivational reasons. Health reasons. Lifestyle questions. Tips on this and that. All these little things to improve myself in a more wholly way - physically, mentally, emotionally, economically. When I have a mix of weird symptoms and don’t feel well, I go to WebMD and see what I can find (and student health SUCKS so I will not go to them for help!). When I want to feel better when I am sad, I Youtube puppies or look at a blog with motivational stories. When I need to know what type of shoes to wear with that dress, I go to cosmo.com and see what they say. When I have to give a group presentation and am a little nervous, I find tips on how to not be nervous while public speaking on a message board about public speaking. If I don’t know what professor to take for a class, I go to ratemyprofessors.com and see instead of just asking my friends in person. If I want to buy something new, I look at the comments on Amazon instead of going to the store and testing it myself. If I am hosting a dinner party and need new recipes, I go to a cooking blog.

 This is one of my favorite puppy videos to watch when I am sad.

Another reason people are use social media for self-help is to be reassured and encouraged (Anderson and Speed). I know I do it sometimes slash very frequently. People write a blog and hope that it gets a lot of views and comments which then in turn leads the writer to believe that they are writing exciting and interesting things. Someone posts about their bad day on a Facebook status, looking for their Facebook friends to tell them that everything is going to be ok. "Myspace pictures," or pictures taken by people at weird angles, became a huge fad because then everyone would comment on them about "how good you look." It's the positive comments and warmth surrounding the reassurance that really improves someone's attitude.

This might be an overshare of a status, but I'm sure this girl was looking for help when she posted this. Or someone hacked her account but that is another topic...

It’s actually ridiculous how often I am using social media to help myself, and the amount that other people are doing the same thing. I mean, look at this website - right here - that is a website basically dedicated videos for self improvement in multiple ways. Like mentioned previously, it’s not the typical type of “self-help” that people have been used to for decades with the self-help books that you go to Barnes and Noble for. This stuff is available right on the internet for free through sites so commonly used. It’s not sitting with a therapist talking through issues - social media is replacing that. It’s much more interactive, people seeking out other people’s thoughts and opinions on what they should do (Rossi). Not everyone who is giving suggestions or making videos online is an expert – but nonetheless people are looking for their help. Regardless if it’s instantaneous communication through a chat room or message board, or if it’s through a blog or video posted years ago, individuals aren’t looking for the experts like they used to. Their looking for real answers from real people, who’ve experienced and asked the same questions they are asking now.




It's kind of amazing that a technology is now the first step, as it seems, towards getting help. As Clay Shirky talks about in his book Here Comes Everybody is that its how technology is used that changes things - not just technology itself. Especially because there is such little, to no, monetary cost, opening it up to so many more individuals (Rossi). Regardless of what it's being used for in terms of the help, social media is paving the way for people to get help in ways that would never be possible thirty, twenty, and even ten years ago. And people taking this first step hopefully means that the second step, getting the help that was the only option before social media and the internet, is that much easier.


But it's really not about all the ways that social media can be used for someone to help themselves in so many aspects of lives, because the list could be never ending of ways to improve oneself. It's about what this new way of finding help has done to past models and what it means.


Think about what I said about social media replacing traditional therapy. Obviously neither is going to disappear completely, but moreso, these two are getting combined. The old form therapy and new form social media can be apart of the same thing - social media and the interactions on there serve as the therapy. This is an aspect of convergence culture, what Jenkins talks about in his book Convergence Culture. It's not exactly "pure" convergence culture, because its not old and new media combining, but its an old way mixing with a new way. People are adapting social media to meet the needs they have, and one of those needs is to help themselves. Instead of paying thousands of dollars to sit in a room and have some M.D. analyze everything you say, individuals are now turning to social media, whether it be blogging taking the place of the therapist or constant tweets being the outlet to get out frustrations like a therapist might listen to. Think of RAINN - Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (Wright). Once upon a time it was an organization that not only helped educate people on rape, abuse, and incest, but it also had a hotline that people could call into to talk about their issues, all completely anonymous (check out this link for more history on the organization). However, everyone knows that phones can always be traced and there is caller ID. Privacy, something else I'll talk about, wasn't completely protected and the hotline was deterring people who really wanted and needed help but didn't want to be identified. So RAINN adapted to the times - and created an online help instant messaging system and expanded their website vastly. Now, people can go online to learn more about these topics, as well as chat with a RAINN employee trained to handle tough issues. It's still not 100% anonymous, but it's an improvement, and there has been a lot of positive feedback. RAINN changed for the times and succeeded in their goals. This website was written by someone who has seen Twitter as a major reason why they've had steady relationships in recent times. She says how through Twitter she's met some of her "biggest supporters" and even gives advice on how to form meaningful relationships through Twitter. 

In addition, there is interaction on multiple levels (Jenkins). As much as a educated and licensed doctor can go online and post on websites to help people who want to hear their opinions (Anderson and Speed), regular people who don't have the same credentials can do the same thing. On message boards, for example, anyone can respond to something posted, like a tip on how to feel better after someone's death, and those looking for information can get tips from someone who might have gone through something similar instead of having to potentially listen to a doctor talk at them about what they should do and not sympathizing with them. The multiple levels make the degrees of "help" better for whatever and whoever is searching; the searcher gains some satisfaction from the fact that just they found other people on the same level of discussion as them (Hsiu-Chia and Feng-Yang). Someone might be looking for an experts advice, or they might be looking for a blog with the best cooking tips from a grandma in Kansas. Or they might be looking for people with the same question/condition/thoughts as them (Rossi). What these levels do is make the interaction not only coming from different types of people, but making the discussions different as well. The topic can change discussion, obviously, as well, but the same topic can have multiple levels of interaction. Whatever someone is searching for, they will be able to find an answer at the place they want.


Another part of self-help and social media is collective intelligence (Jenkins). One reason why I think social media has exploded as a medium for self-help is because so many people can contribute. You aren't all just listening to the same self-help author in the same 4 books. Back to my childhood and when I used the website beinggirl.com to answer my dire pre-teen questions. On there, so many people were posting that there were so many different opinions to choose my advice from that I'd take everyone's advice on whatever I needed. I also could contribute to the discussions, even if I wasn't looking for help at that time, making me feel like I had a voice in that topic. They, those posting, knew things and added to the conversation. I thought I knew the answer to something and added a little bit more. Together, everyone knows a little bit more. The information pool increases and people can choose to accept it all, pieces, or none. (Lakhani & von Hippel quoted in Nov, O., Naaman, M., & Chen, Y). Social media gets combined with old self-help styles and in turn, so many different ways to outreach to people who are looking for help in whatever way are created. The convergence of old and new is a positive.




These self-help reasons can sometimes be "spreadable." What is spreadable (another idea from our friend Jenkins in this article), you might ask? Spreadable means that it moves across the internet, either becoming what we like to call a "sensation" (cue Justin Bieber), or perhaps you've heard of something going "viral" (cue video of Joe Biden saying "this is a big fucking deal"). Not all uses of social media for help can be spreadable, called "sticky", such as an article published on WebMD about how to heal sunburn (its more permanent) or something that attracts a lot of attention for a long time. But a lot of it can be spreadable. Blogs with lots of fans that comment and tweet about it is spreadable. Lots of social networks interworking for the same self-help purpose is spreadable - for example a dating advice message board with links to someone's dating blog with a link to the author's Twitter. With certain aspects being spreadable, people are able to be more in touch and intuned with the resources they are seeking out. In addition, they connect with others and form more intimate relationships, which can be so beneficial when look to self improve (Hsiu-Chia and Feng-Yang). But being sticky isn't a bad thing either, especially if the resource is helping someone. Anderson and Speed talk about increased usage of medical websites, which are "sticky," and how some people do rely on those sites for their medical needs. An article published long ago that is still findable on The New York Times on weight loss tips could be just as helpful as a Twitter feed with tips. It all depends on the person and what they are looking for.      

What I wanted to save kind of towards the end was privacy. As I mentioned earlier, one reason I went to the internet when I was younger was because that it was more private than asking my parents, or even my friends. Today, sometimes that is still the case. Especially if I don't know what exactly I am looking for yet, because I am nervous to ask a question that I have no idea what the answe

r may be. I might after doing some online research go to my friends or parents or a doctor if its medical, but online is my first resource.  Through a message board, a chat room, a blog, you can be whoever you want. You can choose a screen name or none at all to ask or answer a question. For so many people this is comforting, because no one knows what they are looking for. Even though it might not be an embarrassing thing, being able to not be antonymous when trying to better oneself might be the thing one needs to become better. Its very much relate-able to the whole "Second Life" craze and why so many people wanted to be someone else on it. However, sometimes what someone is looking for for help might not be possible to be private. The reassurance and confidence boosts that people look for on Facebook posts, for example, are very hard to keep private. Yes, privacy settings can be set so only friends see your wall and profile, but those are still people seeing what you are posting. Dan Tynan What Facebook privacy settings are really to be concerned with? from my social media syllabus) even talks about what sites like Facebook and Google+ aren't telling you about their privacy. But, as said before, whoever is posting a "I have a final today wish me luck!" status is looking for people to respond - not to be anonymous - so these warnings don't really do anything for those wanting all to see.     

If you think about it also, there has been a formation of social networks around certain topics, which is what Howard Reingold talks about in his book The Virtual Community. People looking for the same things will find each other. They form chat rooms and blogrolls and websites and groups on other social networks. These groups, who are the posters, authors, and creators of the site that in turn helps someone, support each other in whatever way the topic subsides to. For example, bakers will read each other's blogs and guest blogs on anothers. A friend from high school started a fashion blog, gardenofedendesigns.blogspot.com, and she has opened up her blog to sponsorships and even opened a store on etsy.com of her designs. Indeed, because of the success of her blog, she's launching a new line in February - all because the fashion community supported one of their own. But in addition to the producers supporting each other, the consumers of the same materials come together as well. The same people will go to the same social media sites and areas within the sites. People who need reassurance on Facebook, for example, will be friends with a lot of other people who do the same thing they do. Groups of people who need the same support, perhaps a group of people who need help losing weight or even Facebook addicts, will find each other via social media. This website was written by someone who has seen Twitter as a major reason why they've had steady relationships in recent times. She gives advice on how to form meaningful relationships through Twitter, and she says how through Twitter she's met some of her "biggest supporters". And sometimes, that support can make all the difference (Rossi) (Anderson and Speed).