Hello! Here is my social media diary for Thursday 8/29/24. I wasn’t online as much as I normally am due to having a longer work shift and plans afterward, but I would say that it does do a good job of representing a large amount of the media that I consume on a daily basis.

5:00 a.m.: Woke up and probably like many others, checked to see if I received any notifications on my phone while asleep. I saw that I had a couple notifications on Instagram from various accounts that I have post notifications on for but didn’t open those specific notifications.

5:13 a.m.: I decided to open Instagram before getting ready for work, mostly out of habit, to see if there were any noteworthy posts. I saw a post about the band Oasis announcing reunion shows in the U.K. I also saw a post that discussed that while there have been rumors that were circulating online that the singer of Sum 41 may be joining the band Linkin Park to fill in for the late Chester Bennington, those rumors were not true. The singer, Derek Whibley, took to social media to deny the rumors and explain why they were started.

Another post that caught my intention was a “suggested for you” post from Instagram, that stated a potential reason that fingerprints are now used to identify criminals. I did some research on the information within the post, and it appears to be a true story, as I found more information on it on Oxford Reference from a book by Suzanne Bell called A Dictionary of Forensic Science.

5:45 a.m.: While driving to work, I listened to bands like Joyce Manor, Free Throw and Cafune using Spotify.

5:57 a.m.: Before clocking in to work at Starbucks, I opened Instagram to see if I found anything interesting. I didn’t find anything notable.

8:32 a.m.: While on a ten-minute break at work, I once again opened Instagram, since that’s usually where I find the most relevant and interesting content for me. I saw another “suggested for you” post styled in a similar way to the one I saw in the morning that stated that a man named Ron Wayne sold his 10% stake in Apple for $800 in 1976, which according to the post would be worth $320 billion today. After doing research online, I found a CNBC article from 2018 that confirmed that Wayne sold his 10% stake in Apple for $800 in 1976 due to concerns that debts incurred by the business would fall on him. According to the CNBC article, however, the 10% stake in Apple would only be worth “more than $95 billion”. While that is still an enormous amount, $320 billion as the post stated may not be completely accurate. On the other hand, a Yahoo! Finance article from this month states that his stake would be worth around $345 billion due to Apple’s current market value.

10:07 a.m.: While on a lunch break, I watched an episode of the anime Black Clover on the app Crunchyroll.

2:30 p.m.: Listened to music on Spotify again while driving after work. This time I also listened to bands like Origami Angel who I am seeing in November, Tigers Jaw, Vacations, and Forests.

3:13 p.m.: FaceTimed with my friend Mason while at Guitar Center, a music store, partially to talk and also because he wanted drumsticks and I had to ask him what kind he wanted.

3:20 p.m.: I used Safari on my phone to research a power supply for guitar pedals that I was interested in buying while at Guitar Center.

3:34 p.m.: Listening to the same music on Spotify while driving home.

4:00 p.m.: One of my favorite musicians Frank Iero of My Chemical Romance released a guitar pedal and posted about it on Instagram which I got a notification for, so I looked up the pedal to get more information on it and to see how much it was. Primarily because of the $250 price tag, I passed on purchasing it.

4:15 p.m.: While working on an Evangelion model build, I listened to the album Somewhere City by Origami Angel on Spotify. This has been the second model I’ve built, and I like that it takes me away from the passive social media scrolling that I would do even more so than this day. Listening to music while working on it was a good combination.

7:51 p.m.: While carpooling as a passenger with some friends, I started to scroll on Reddit. As a Starbucks barista, I follow a couple Starbucks subreddits. On one of them, I saw a post created by another barista that showed a screenshot from the Starbucks app promoting a drink sale for 8/30. The days that these sales occur are usually a lot busier, so it’s helpful to know when they happen.

8:15 p.m.: Played a little bit of Pokémon GO while continuing to carpool with friends. I also scrolled Instagram and Twitter, but I didn’t find anything significant.

Reflection

When doing this diary, I did my best to simultaneously find as much content that could be questionable, while also staying true to my normal media “routine”. I was surprised to find less far-fetched media than I expected to, however I do think it is important to note that it was a busy day for me, so I was on social media less than I am on a normal day. I found it interesting that the most questionable content that I found was suggested to me by Instagram. While the content ended up being mostly true, I did feel the need to research the topics to confirm the accuracy before believing it. I think that I am more inclined to believe content shared from people that I know or have learned from their prior posts, as I have a way to trust that they have not lied to me in the past.