When given the chance to interview a young person regarding their interaction with the various forms of popular culture, I couldn’t resist interviewing a 19 year old.  Why? Because I want to know how these teenagers close to my own age feel about all this. There is a copy of the interview attached to the bottom of this post if you wish to read E’s raw answers.

E is a 2nd year university student that is studying a dual degree of business and creative writing.  She is a regular user of certain social media and has strong opinions regarding many aspects of popular culture. Part 1 of the interview discusses her opinion on technology, social media and communicating with her friends.

When asked what type of technology she uses E responded with:

A phone is easy and portable and has Facebook messenger and also text, so it’s easy to contact people. Laptop is mostly used for study purposes but also for watching movies and tv shows in my free time. I use each of these multiple times a day.

After discussing this further, E stated that she didn’t really use any of the other forms of social media.  She did not have a Twitter account, barely used her Instagram and was not a fan of Snapchat. E did state that she checked Facebook regularly to check in with her friends and family.  She believes that it is the easiest way to communicate with people. Interestingly, E also stated that it was the way she kept up to date with what was happening in the world.

After discussing with E how she used social media we turned our conversation towards her opinion of people using social media and whether it affected her opinion of people.

I think there is an obvious dependency that current society has on social media, andthe voyeurism that comes with knowing all the details about everyone’s daily activities. While it is an obsession that all of us currently have, it is no different to 20 years ago with people gossiping about their friends and neighbours over coffee, it’s just now all written down online. I think that there is a limit to the privacy of others, especially when it comes to personal things, which should never be shared online for other people.

Respect people’s privacy, and they will respect yours.

E also stated that although her and her close friends have a very healthy online relationship, she has unfriended acquaintances over things they have posted that she has not necessarily agree with.

We discussed E’s preferred method of communication with her friends.  She stated that she preferred meeting with her friends and talking in person because she could read people’s reactions and liked the company. However, E did say that she found communicating with her friends via text or Facebook messenger to be a quick, effective and easy way to stay in contact all day.  I asked if she felt the need to be connected with her friends 24/7 and she answered: yes, don’t you?

Our conversation soon turned to E’s thoughts on how young people are using social media these days and what she thought of it all.

People definitely use it for the ‘likes’ and to gain some sort of recognition from society. But that is only a small amount of people that I know, and they are mostly posing half naked and I would not be surprised if they have a very big ego. People who would do anything for some praise definitely need to tone it down as it can be very in your face.

This lead our conversation into discussing cyber bullying and if E had had any personal experience with it. We also discuss people’s reason for cyber bullying and if she thought people brought it upon themselves with the content they post.  E brought up an interesting point regarding “trolling.”

Trolling can be okay to an extent. I have seen it used just in the sense when someone makes a grammatical mistake and everyone can have a laugh about it, but when it goes too far as to actually start insulting someone and putting them down it is terrible. That is when it could even be classified as cyber bullying, as no one should feel downgraded like that.

 

I found it very interesting to note that E’s use and opinion of social media is very similar to my own. This makes me feel less old!

In Part 2 of the interview we discuss E’s thoughts on books, tv shows, movies and music.

Interview with E