Now that the 20% project is coming to a close, and presentations are nearing I have began to reflect back on this project and what I have learned through researching and analyzing my topic. The main question that I focused on for the project was, "does social media actually make college students more social or unsocial?". Although many people believe that college students are being social by communicating with others via social media, we are actually inverting ourselves into a digital life and hiding behind a keyboard. Through researching I discovered that 94% of first year college students use social media sites, and 38% of students say they cannot go more than 10 minutes without checking their laptop, smartphone, or e-reader. This addiction/attachment that college students are forming between themselves and social media is taking away from their ability to communicate to peers in person, because they are so focused and caught up in a social media realm.
To collect all of my ideas/findings and put them into a presentable form, I used the website Glogster to create an online poster. Glogster is a great tool which allowed me to combine text, music, videos, and pictures to create a poster online that easy to comprehend and navigate. Glogster also allows for the use of color and design that grabs people's attention, so that they are eager to focus on the message that your poster conveys.
While gathering all of the ideas and facts for my 20% project, I found it difficult to differentiate between fact and opinion online. Although everyone's opinion holds value, I was solely looking for facts while researching so that I could form my opinion to center the project around. After my project was presented, many students believed that in some ways social media can distract college students and in a way make them unsocial. Rather than conversing with the people around us, we sometimes tend to focus on our phone or laptop which makes us unable to fully live in the moment and take advantage of all experiences and interactions.

Final Presentation on Glogster:
http://shelbywarren29.edu.glogster.com/edit-2000-20-project/

Through researching this question I have become more aware of the negative effects of social media on my generation and generations to come. Many people think that social media connects people, which in some ways it in fact does, but it also disconnects us from reality. Although I have learned a lot about social media's impacts on society, there is still a lot more research to be done. I would like to find out  how it will effect future generations, with the increased usage and advances in technology/social media.  With the increased development of social media, and rapid expansion of the technology realm, I can only imagine it worsening from here on out. In class we incorporate many forms of social media into our agenda, so I would also like to see if the use of social media benefits our class and learning environment as a whole.
I think that if people read my blog and actually thought more about the effects of social media on college students, they would realize that it is not necessary to always rely on social media. Since my 20% topic pertains to the use of social media by college students, my target audience for this blog is obviously college students.
To communicate my findings to the class and others, I have decided to create an online poster. I think that an online poster will effectively communicate my ideas in an organized and easy to understand manner. Especially since all my facts and thoughts will all be on one page, and easy to read as well!

After doing research about my blog question if social media makes college students social or unsocial, I discovered a very interesting point. Social media inhibits our ability to be present in a given environment. One main observation is that when we become intertwined with technology or things like social media, we become hypnotized and become caught up in another world. When college students are too focused on their phone, rather than the world around them they miss out on opportunities, connections and experiences that they otherwise could've used to their advantage. For example social media serves as a distraction when a group of friends come together, because rather than conversing with the people around them, they focus on checking twitter updates, checking Facebook, and posting that new picture on Instagram. In essence we are living life through a social media portal, rather than in the actual world itself. Although we may believe we are being social by communicating with others via social media, we are actually inverting ourselves into a digital life and hiding behind a keyboard.
This addiction for many is inhibiting the ability for college students to live life to the fullest. Rather than live through phone calls and 360 character texts, our generation needs to put the phone down and communicate with peers in person. We need to realize that social media in fact does the opposite of what we desire it to, be social.

A blog that I found related to my 20% project was titled, "Quitting Social Media". This teen written article authored by Jorge Cruz explains how quitting social media impacted his life. It also goes into detail on some of social media's negative attributes that effect teens across the country. For example its addictive nature, bullying, gossip, and ability for people to hide behind a screen while communicating with others. Cruz states that he has found that people who are always in front of computers are often likely to be more shy in person. They could be extremely expressive through social media, however face to face they're afraid to speak up. These findings support my original theory that social media actually makes college students "unsocial" rather than "social".

Does social media actually make college students more "social" or "unsocial"?

The main goal of social media is to connect people through an online source such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine etc. However, rather than serve a social purpose, it could be debated that social media actually contributes to college students internalizing. Rather than experience the world around them and communicate with their peers face to face, they have become so enthralled in their phone that it makes them "unsocial". Imagine not having your phone for a whole day and not being able to communicate with anyone via social media, almost 100% of college students would have a problem with this. Social media has turned into a sort of addiction for many students, that in future generations is predicted to only get worse. The reason that I chose this question to center my blog around is because something such as social media that is designed to increase our social skills, is in fact doing the exact opposite. Through this blog I will provide facts to support this theory and explain why I believe it to be true.