It is hard to remember a life without social media. It is such an important part of our lives that we just seem to not live without it. I remember growing up in that transition that led to the explosion of the use of social media as a part of our daily lives.

I am currently taking an online class for my capstone requirement. The class that I am taking is SOWK 388: Social Media, Digital Activism, and eCitizenship. So for my class, I have to make a blog post answering the following questions. Do you use it? Why/why not? Which forms of social media do you use? and What benefits and drawbacks have you personally seen to using social media?

• I use social media on a daily basis as long as I can remember. It plays an important part in my life and I have many different purposes that I utilize it for. Mostly I use it to keep others updated with my life as well as to keep up with those who live down the road or across the globe. I am just accustomed to using social media because I grew up with it and it is just the norm of the time. I remember using MSN Messenger to talk with my friends right after school about the latest news and what not. Those were the times.
• The forms of social media that I use are social networks, social news outlets, media sharing, Blogs and group messaging services. These are just a few that I use. Specifically for social networks, I utilize Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. One of my favorite social news outlets is Buzzfeed. Most media sharing sites are video sites. Video sites that are popular and those that I use are Youtube, Vimeo and of course Netflix. Blogs are important to me. I host my blog on my website which I write about various topics and I integrate other social media forms within my blog and posts. GroupMe is a popular form of social media as well that is used for group messaging.
• There are many benefits and drawbacks that I have experienced personally using social media. The benefits of social media is keeping up with friends and family one does not see daily. It has helped me get a job in the past. It is really useful to become creative and asking for help because I know there are people always willing to help me out when I am in a crunch. It is unfortunate that there are many drawbacks that I have experienced personally. I have witnessed cyberbullying to others. This is especially true when others do not have the same opinion that was expressed by someone. I have gone through this before and received much backlash. The biggest drawback was when I posted something without really thinking much about it and almost led me to problems down the road.