In your first entry, answer these questions: What forms of new media do you use daily? How has new social media influenced your perspective of events? Are these positive or negative influences?

My daily use of new media includes accessing the internet from my iphone, ipad, as well as my laptop. I visit Facebook every day, often multiple times a day. I commonly use the internet for research as well as entertainment. Monthly, I stream movies and TV shows from Netflix and Amazon, as well as watch YouTube videos. During last terms Communications course, I conducted an experiment and took a sabbatical from Facebook. The results were startling to me. I had no idea how ingrained my habit of spending time just cruising FB and the web was, how social media functioned as the "other person in the room" to me until I did this. Crazy!

Social media has made news less of a fact gathering experience and more of a temperature gauging experience. On the down side, I have to look harder for factual information. Some of news media has fallen in with the trend of expressing opinion, rather than fact, in what I believe is an attempt to stay relevant and interesting to younger audiences. This makes it more difficult, however, to trust your sources.

On the upside, it has given me a better read for how the public in general is reacting to news at the moment it is released to the public. People are much more comfortable expressing their honest opinions online than they are at the office or the water cooler. The internet has made it easier for people to find their "tribe" and creates a safer environment for others to express their beliefs.