enjoy.

 

Thesis HW

The main point of my essay is to show that there is an existing relationship between social media usage and mental illnesses such as depression

The purpose of my essay is to inform people, young adults in particular of the risks in overusing social media and how it can affect them emotionally and mentally

The audience for this essay is young adults

Potential thesis- With social media being a huge aspect of everyday life, many people particularly young adults are unaware of the affects it can have on them both mentally and emotionally which can ultimately lead to depression

Q: Does this match my purpose/is this all over the place?

Research Journal 5

Annotated Bib

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hOdUB1Dvxc06_xXmiKYTCl3_xfDVnbLRV9zNLqzdl0E/edit?usp=sharing

 

 

Finished. Bless up.

 

Research Journal 4

Past Me: That last entry was bomb af !!

Me: Yeah, but did you forget you have TWO more to do -_-

Past: Ugh please no I’m so tired I got stress, anxiety, no motivation YOU NAME IT

Me: You’re extra. Let’s get to it. You remember what we discussed last time right?

Past Me: Yeah, body dysmorphia, me dying, I remember it all.

Me: Good, we’re going a bit deeper into that now so get ready.

Past Me: Before we start, can you get that hot pocket I left in the microwave, I completely forgot about that ish.

*3 minutes later*

*Comes back with delicious hot pocket*

Me: Alright, now we can begin. I came across an article that really stuck out to me, I’ll copy and paste the link in case you wanna check it out for yourself. (http://course.duruofei.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Choudhury_Predicting-Depression-via-Social-Media_ICWSM13.pdf ) Lowkey had to read this over about 20 times before I could understand what it was talking about, it’s scholarly AF. It contains great information though, a lot of the medical aspects of the topic including MDD (Major Depressive Disorder.) There were a few graphs that showed how many people posted depression related statuses on both Twitter and Facebook for a year. Check out these crazy stats.

Total number of users 476 / Total number of Twitter posts 2,157,992 /  Mean number of posts per user over the entire 1 year period 4,533.4 / Variance of number of posts per user over the entire 1 year period 3,836 / Mean number of posts per day per user 6.67 / Variance of number of posts per day per user 12.42

If you’re having trouble understanding the data no worries. It’s pretty much saying that there were 476 users they examined, about 2 million tweets combined in one year, each user tweeted almost 5,000 times per year, they tweeted about 7 times a day and the last statistic I have no clue what dat means but you get the point right?? Just with less than 500 people there were over 2 MILLION tweets relating to them and their depression. Just think about that. I know I’m throwing a lot of info at you, it’s just because of the hot pocket, I’m alert now. But think about it. Social Media sites like Twitter being used as a platform to display their feelings of depression. Pretty sad, I know. And that’s just one website over a span of one year. Well, hope that gave you something to think about. One more journal after this, why the hell did you decide to leave this for the day before even after Ms. LaPadura suggested not to?? SMH.

Past Me: *Read at 11:39pm*

 

Research Journal 3

Enjoy.

Me: Boolin, how’s it going ?

Past Me: Stressed AF !! Can’t figure out exactly where I wanna go with my topic like I don’t know, I’m afraid that I’m not gonna have any good ideas and that I won’t have enough to write about.

Me: Well don’t worry, you’re going to die before the paper is even due.

Past Me: WAIT WHAT?!

Me: I’m only kidding, do you believe EVERYTHING you see online?? Well, I can’t really blame you. That’s one of the things you’ll learn once you get deep into your research. You can’t trust everything you see online. Now, would you like some good ideas or nah ?

Past Me: Yas

Me: Alright, take notes. Basically you’re going to learn a lot about the connection between social media and mental illness, specifically depression. You’re gonna find a plethora of articles online that will really get the gears turning in your noggin. You will also find out what the word “plethora” means. The most commonly cause of depression due to social media was because of the term called “body dysmorphia.” It basically means that when someone spends too much time on the internet, looking at all these other people and their lifestyles, they can begin to get self-conscious about how they look and start to see themselves as something they’re not, which leads to depression. You with me so far ?

Past Me: Yes

Me: Good. Now onto the example I used above when I had you believe you were going to die. People post things all the time about themselves that aren’t even true. They exaggerate and only show people what they want them to see. You can pick and choose what you want people to see you as which in a way is very deceiving. You easily believed that what I said was true, but why ? Because if it’s online, people have this pre-conceived idea that it must be true. This is the part where it gets crazy. People have false identities and personas online and other people see it, start doubting themselves and envying the other person and become self-conscious because someone decided to lie on the internet and make their life seem better than it is. Then they realize that and get in their feelings and it’s just a huge mess, you see? It’s just a never-ending cycle. Through your research you’ll discover more issues that relate the two and it will become more clear to you.

Past Me: Damn, that’s brazy !! You sound so smart. I like what you did with our hair btw, the highlights really make your curls stand out.

Me: Good looks, you’ll get them end of February. Andres is gonna do a great job. Anyways, hope this helped with the stress somewhat, if you need anything, hmu.

Past Me: Dope

Research Journal #2

I found a scholarly article titled “Predicting Depression via Social Media” by Munmun De Choudhury. It provides an in depth analysis on the relationship between depression and social media usage.  The author stated “The emotion and language used in social media postings may indicate feelings of worthlessness, guilt, helplessness, and self-hatred that characterize major depression. Additionally, depression sufferers often withdraw from social situations and activities. Such changes in activity might be salient with changes in activity on social media.” This shows that people are so heavily involved with social media that whatever happens on there affects their actual lives and the distinction between the two is getting more difficult to notice. The author brings up many valid points and has many important findings which are important because they show the correlation between the two and all the possible ways MDD (Major Depressive Disorder) is caused. I learned a bunch of new information and terms just from this one article. It really gave me an in-depth view of the medical aspects of clinical depression and it’s relationship to social media which I think is great to have for the essay

Research Journal #1

My topic is Social Media and it’s relationship to Mental Illness. I’ve been very interested in this topic and think it’s something extremely important to know about and share with others. One article that I found was titled “Facebook and Mental Health: Is Social Media Hurting Or Helping? The author Julia Cottle did  a study on the relationship between the usage of social media and a person’s emotional state. She used charts and touched on many different types of illnesses such as depression and eating disorders, explaining the correlation between them and the internet. She ultimately came to the conclusion that using social media apps such as Facebook can be hurtful but also helpful, just depends on how someone is using it. These findings are important because even though social media can be used in positive way such as acting as a platform to raise awareness or to have your voice heard, it is also very dangerous and can make someone doubt themselves and question their worth. This article changed my research process in that it gave me more specific things to look into like I would’ve never thought to look at Facebook as a danger but there are so many ways it is misused and since nowadays everybody friends everybody, it can cause problems.

Marissa, Sam & Angelica HW

To whoever it may concern,

Personally, I have a lot of issues with how things are run at Harrison High School, one of them being the pep rallys and the spirit week leading up to it. This isn’t necessarily a policy but it’s something that added to the 4 years of my bad high school experience. First of all, I think you should consider hiring an actual DJ, not a student who knows how to skip from one song to the next. Second, I think you should consider not having the bleachers set up because everyone tends to stay sitting and it really takes the “pep” out of “pep rally.” I also think the different activities should be better and possibly some food should be offered too. Now for my least favorite part…spirit week. I don’t know who gets the final say in what the days should be or who comes up with the ideas but they are actually terrible. Some of the outfit ideas are super hard to find like for example, not everyone has cowboy attire or owns the color yellow. I think that the themes should be changed or at least voted on. The student body should be able to have a say in what they want and the leaders they chose to represent them have an obligation to listen and make sure their needs are taken care of and voices are heard. If the spirit week is lame, the pep rally will be as well. Hopefully these changes will take place soon, since they are really supposed to be the best parts of the overall high school experience. I hope you find this letter helpful.

Sincerely,

Anonymous

 

Stephen and Anastasia HW

A typical day during my senior year was pretty simple. I would wake up to my alarm and after turning it off, I’d go back to sleep. After a while, my mom would come into my room and wake me up the Hispanic way…opening up the blinds and pulling the covers off of me. Eventually, the brightness became unbearable so I had no choice but to get up. I would take a 30 minute shower depending on how sleepy I was and then take another 40 min to find an outfit. I was never a breakfast eater so that saved some time. Since I took 5 million years to take my 5 hour course and schedule my road test, my dad would drop me off because I couldn’t have a car on campus without a legit license. It was a real struggle. It wasn’t until the end of the year that I finally got it and was able to drive to school. Once I got to school I would eat breakfast and go to my first class most of the time. Throughout the day I would take a visit to the cafeteria especially during 6th period because that’s when all of my friends had lunch. When I had lunch 5th, I would either order food from Pizza 2000 or get a sandwich from the sandwich bar. Just about everyday I hit up the smoothie bar because they were honestly so lit. After a long and strenuous day of eating and doing nothing, I would get home around 3 and take a nap. Most of the time I would do homework after. If not , I saved it for late at night or the next morning. I really didn’t do much my senior year because I had a lot of free periods so it was pretty laid back.

Jaya, Laura & Ally’s HW

This is going to be tough considering I somewhat blocked out most of my childhood haha but the earliest memory I can recall is when I moved to New York after being born and raised in New Jersey my whole life. I was so scared because when I thought of NY, the only thing that came to mind was tall buildings, traffic and loudness. That was the exact opposite of what I was used to considering I came from a little town named Clifton. My mom wanted to move because that is where my stepdad lived and after he proposed, they decided it would be best if we all relocated there with him and his son. So, new home in a new city with a new dad and a new brother…pretty overwhelming for an 8 year old huh? It was tough adjusting but I eventually became comfortable with it. My dad even told me that I should go to soccer tryouts just as a way to have fun and meet other kids my age and well now look, I ended up playing in college. This experience was a huge turning point for me in life. I had to learn to share my mom with someone else (which was NOT easy) and I had to adapt to the different lifestyle that came along with living in NY. It took me a while to get used to it and while I would totally be down to move back to Clifton someday, NY is my home and I absolutely love it.