Introducing Myself

My name is Jed Arnold. I currently live in a small town in central Illinois, but in 3 weeks I am moving to Chicago. I am working towards a degree in psychology to hopefully become an addictions counselor in the near future. I have worked in a probation office as well as a local library and oddly enough, both have given me a great insight into the nature of addiction. I have never felt a great desire for any career until I started dealing with those struggling with addiction.

I am currently a Circulation Manager at the library I work at, which basically comes down to customer service and making sure everyone knows how to shelve books properly. The key is to know the alphabet. I am engaged to a wonderful woman who hopefully follows through and marries me in February. So, you could say that planning a wedding as my current hobby. I feel like my mind has been spent on the proper colors for a table runner as well as why certain flowers are not allowed to be paired with other flowers for the past 5 months. I cannot seem to find time for my former hobbies like book clubs and dodgeball games.

I love showing off this picture because I honestly feel like it was the only one that I was happy about on the day it was taken. A lovely storm coming in and the photographer had this great idea where I pick up and carry my fiancé in my arms for an hour for pictures. This is the first one where I was able to put her down.

I really hope that I can take away from this class is just a better understanding of how we as a society communicate online. I have fallen to the wayside when it comes to online communication and social media. I use my email for my job and that has become essential to me.

Other than that, I have found that I do better the less I am involved with online communication. But I also realize that that is no way to go through life. I need a better understanding of social media and a better understanding of how people communicate online if I want to grow and become an addictions counselor, especially when it comes to building interpersonal relationships. Just because I don't understand something, doesn't mean I should be afraid of learning about it I realized.

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Communication Junkie Lessons

I personally tend to listen to comedy or horror podcasts on regular basis. If I am feeling smart and educated, sometimes I listen to a random Harvard Business Review IdeaCasts episode just to feel like I fit in with my wife. That changed when I started taking this class. I saw that we had to complete a podcast as an assignment, so I started compiling a list of podcasts on communication. Luckily enough, when this assignment came up, I had a repertoire of podcasts built up that dealt with this very topic. I chose to do this assignment on Communication Junkie's podcast, and specifically the one titled, " Surviving Social Media " where the host, Steven Fuller, talks about the time he posted a tweet that caused some difficulties with his job. In a short rundown, though I suggest listening to the podcast since it is only 10 minutes or so long, the host explains how he sent a tweet out in as a joke. (Fuller, 2019) How the public perceived the tweet and the fallo...

Digital Natives: Real or Myth?

Good Ole Prensky Marc Prensky coined the term "digital natives" in 2001 in the article "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" published in On the Horizon. Prensky does explains that those born into this more technologically advanced age are digital natives due to the fact that the children grow up with these new digital devices and interact with the devices their whole, albeit young, lives. Those born before this time frame, or 1984 as Kirschner believes, are digital immigrants due to the fact that they lived lives before the advancement of the digital world and are in face new and must assimilate to the digital world. The graph below does a good job of explaining the ways that digital natives and digital immigrants consume information. So, by this logic, I myself would fall into the digital native category. I feel like I would disagree with Prensky if it was based on my experiences alone. Although I consume too much digital information, more than what is d...

Public Opinion and Social Media

Although I tend to have a negative view on social media, there is no doubt the benefit that social media can have on society. When I look Bullet 3, it seems easy to answer about how social media has allowed users to win over the hearts and minds of people. It is easy to get caught up in the negativity that floats around the internet, but it would be remiss if the positives were not pointed out more. For example, the Ice Bucket Challenge raised over $135 million dollars for ALS research. By using social media, awareness was spread for ALS allowing those to donate as well as win people over for the cause. Social media has also given those the platform to speak who have either been afraid or unable to voice their opinions before. The #MeToo allowed those to speak out on the sexual harassment they had experienced. While shameful that it took a movement on social media to rectify the acts of those in power, but the #MeToo movement...

Jed Arnold

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