I'll admit it....I'm totally a Facebook addict.

I don't know if anyone else in this class feels the same way, but I have developed this serious addiction that I need to constantly feed by compulsively checking Facebook many times throughout the day. I know it sounds weird...and a little sad, but I guess the reason why I like Facebook so much is because it seems to be the easiest way to stay in touch with people I've met (middle school, high school, college, etc.) without actually having to TALK to them. I bet you're thinking about how weird that sounds too. It's true, though. Think about all the people you are friends with on Facebook (if you have it) then think to yourself, 'Would I really be friends with these people in real life? Or am I just friends with them through this social networking website so that in the case that I might actually care what they're doing these days, I can just look them up online and find out?' Again, maybe it's just me, and most people only use this website to stay connected with the people they see on a daily basis. Who knows.

Although Facebook is the website I visit most frequently, there are still other forms of media that find their way into my daily life. For instance, over the past four or five years I have noticed myself watching much more television than I ever have before. Of course, when I watch tv, it's usually to catch a specific show. I'm never just channel surfing, but that still can't guarantee that I won't have to sit through the countless commercials. My tv-watching habits now are completely different from my childhood. When I was about 5 years old, my parents got rid of cable and I said goodbye to the Mickey Mouse Club forever. After that, it was basically PBS and WETA, which meant Sesame Street, Arthur, Reading Rainbow, and Barney. These were the shows I was allowed to grow up watching, and these channels were lacking in the commercials for fast food and other consumer products that regular channels had. I think my parents liked that PBS and WETA got their money from viewer donations rather than advertising.

All during my childhood, the most common way for me to hear what was going on in the world would be on the radio. My parents religiously listened to NPR, and even though it bugged me as a little kid because all I ever heard was "boring talking", I still could not help but listen from time to time.

When I was in 6th grade or so, we began to use America Online as our internet provider and I was introduced to the world of Instant Messaging. A good deal of my friends from school also had IM, and so began the era of talking to people online for hours at a time. In high school, IM became useful for asking teachers questions before an exam. Chat rooms were also a way to talk with teachers and other students to review exam materials. High school also happened to be the time period when I got my first cell phone and came to rely on it as a main form of communication. Having a cell phone meant being able to contact pretty much anyone at any given time of day. I used my cell phone back then to keep in touch with my parents when I went out, as well as for keeping contact with friends when we were out. Texting became the new "on-the-go" instant messaging, an alternative to actually calling someone and relaying a short message.

Overall, I think my media habits have definitely broadened throughout the course of my life. I can't imagine not being able to use Facebook to communicate with my friends, and reverting to live without a cell phone would be manageable, but extremely hard. I also know that I could do without cable television, but how would I entertain myself when there's nothing else to do? I can acknowledge that I have become very dependent on all these forms of media, and although I don't see it as a good thing, that doesen't mean that it's a bad thing.....right?

Here is the blog that I have chosen to read over the course of the semester:

http://www.dailykos.com/

Hope this is okay!

Who am I?

Hey, everyone. My name is Susannah Parker, and I am new at UMBC this year, a transfer student from a couple of places. I graduated high school in 2004 from Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, and started as a freshman at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. It was definitely a place where I got what I think a lot of people would consider the "traditional college experience". By that I mean huge student body (upwards of 30,000), frat parties, house parties, very large classes (anywhere from 300-500 students), and, of course, everyone was REALLY into school spirit (Big 10 football...GO BADGERS!). Although that might have been what I thought I wanted to do for my four years in college, it turned out that I was not entirely correct. I did enjoy my time in Madison, but the huge state school was not for me.


After a year and a half, I came home, not knowing what I wanted to do, and decided to take classes at Montgomery College while I figured it out. I stuck with Sociology, my intended major at UW, and got my grades up significantly while living at home. After some serious thinking about where I wanted to go from there, I decided it would be easier (not to mention cheaper for my parents) to go somewhere closer to home, and starting looking into UMD and UMBC. I knew that they were completely different schools, Maryland being much more like Wisconsin that UMBC. After doing some reasearch on both, I realized that maybe it was time to try something totally different than what I had already done. I chose to transfer to UMBC in the hope that a smaller student body and a campus not located in the midst of a total college town would help me get past all the novelties of so-called "college life" and get down to business. Or whatever you want to call going to class and eventually getting my BA.


On an entirely different note, the picture on the right is from a trip I took over the summer to San Francisco. I was walking down Haight street and saw the awesome graffiti and there just so happened to be an old purple VW Beetle sitting right in front of it. I thought it was an appropriate photo op considering I was wandering around in the hippie/psychadelic capital of the U.S, so I snapped a picture. It also happens to be my current Facebook picture because I like it so much.

Here is a link to Facebook.
Because I know most of you are on it, and if you aren't, you should know that it's a great way to connect with people at your school, in your area, or just friends you don't get to see very often.