Authors Statement

My whole life I grew up living with technology. I got my first phone in the fourth

grade and I instantly found out how much more convenient life is with technology.

Technology found its way into my education, free time, and social life. As the years went

on in school teachers have evolved from using chalk boards and notebooks to using

smart boards and chromebooks. This made school become much more convenient and

easier to follow. I also used technology to entertain myself during my free time. I would

watch videos on my phone or play video games on my Xbox. I realized that without

technology I found my free time very boring.Technology has also allowed me to stay

much more connected with the public and my individual social life. Technology has

become a foundation in my life for basically everything I did.

Social media has always played a huge role in my life. Starting out on Facebook

and moving on to use Instagram and Snapchat I used social media as a way to stay

connected with all my different friends and family. Social media allows me to share my

experiences with my family and friends whether its through pictures,messages, or

videos. Social media has also made its way into my classrooms. One my teachers used

twitter as way to gain extra credit. He also used to twitter to post class reminders for

things like homework, quizzes, and test. The last way social media has affected my life

is by letting me stay up to date with current events such as the weather or politics.

Without social media I would most likely have lost many of my best friends that I have

made with the help of social media.

After reading the articles assigned to social media Ive learned two new points.

The first point is that many higher level scholars use Wikipedia as a starting point to
their research. This was surprising to me because my whole life i've been told by many

teachers to avoid using Wikipedia because it was not a reliable source, but as I kept

using Wikipedia throughout my years In school ive learned that Wikipedia has

progressively became a more reliable source. The second point Ive learned from the

articles ive read is that people that use social media more frequently are more likely to

see the negative effects of social media. In How does digital media really affect us? a

map shows that developing countries are more likely to say that digital media has

improved their quality of life than already developed countries. Before this article I

thought that developing countries would be more likely to say social media had negative

impacts on their life.

The first inquiry question I now have after reading the articles is How do you think

Wikipedia will continue to improve its credibility with future researchers? The second

inquiry question is What kind of negative effects does social media have on a work

place? The last inquiry question I have created is In what ways will social media

continue to add on to their positive effects in a school or work environment?