Unit 3 Reflection

We started unit 3 with a reading and discussion on social media use. The article, “Middle School Students’ Social Media Use,” showed that while social media has its deficits, it is a booming highway of communication that uses multiple modes to convey information. When I tracked my own social media usage, I was not incredibly surprised. TikTok consumes a large majority of my screen time, which I expected, but the disparity between my usage of it and all other apps is quite large. In the past week, I spent 21.5 hours on TikTok with the closest second being Snapchat with 5.5 hours. This averages out to about 3 hours a day for TikTok and 47 minutes a day on Snapchat. I’m honestly surprised that Snapchat was the second highest. I only open it up to send or receive a quick picture or message, so I thought it would be lower. Etsy, Depop, and Pinterest are where I fall down most of my rabbit holes, so I was surprised that none of them were even in my top five. TikTok is my biggest time waster by far, but I just love how much information can be conveyed in short video format. I learn so much about everything from world events to cooking within five minutes of opening the app. Another article, “’Convince me!’ Valuing Multimodal Literacies and Composing Public Service Announcements,” describes the ways in which students learned to use visuals to convey a message, rather than just in written format. This stood out to me because the assignment of creating PSA posters improves students’ fluency in another mode of communication than just written English. Visual communication is useful in so many ways other than just entertainment. Graphics, charts, and organizers can convey information much more clearly than written words, yet students may not understand how to create or read them. Flow matters when you visually represent a concept. Images may be there to add interest, but they should also tell a story within your visual. In a world where we are so busy and our attention is fleeting, visuals are more likely to stand out and be noticed, thus spreading the intended message more effectively. In the article “You All Made Dank Memes: Using Internet Memes to Promote Critical Thinking,” I learned that learning through visuals is not only useful in conveying information, but just looking at them requires critical thinking and evaluation skills, as well. When we made our memes on social issues, I had a firsthand experience with this. I made mine about the Men’s Loneliness Epidemic, which I had a fair grasp of prior to making my meme, but as I read on in my research, my stance changed. The format I used involved a figure representing the men of society shooting himself in the foot, labeled “the Men’s Loneliness Epidemic,” and then telling the figure representing the women of society to fix it. My original thought was that men caused the Men’s Loneliness Epidemic, but that is a rather surface level take. After my research, I went back and edited my meme so that the gun that he was shooting himself in the foot with was labeled “the patriarchy.” I did this because the format made me realize that the man did not act alone. There was a tool involved in creating the wound, and in this situation that is the patriarchy, as men’s emotional inhibitions are a result of the thought that femininity/emotionality is a bad thing. Through representing my message visually, I gained a more informed and empathetic understanding of the topic. I chose to include my meme in my blog post because, to me, it is a real-life representation of the learning and growth that can result from the use of visuals and social media in the classroom.