Well I do not know the correlation between your age and a bowl of yogurt, but Buzzfeed took this idea and made it into a quiz.

You probably became curious and took the quiz, didn’t you? You probably got a ridiculous result and posted it on your social media platforms, right? As ridiculous as the quiz seemed, I took it… and thanks to my lovely selections of flavors and toppings, they guessed that I am 50 years old (yay?). I did not share this quiz and my results on my social media outlets (except here), but there has been a certain impulse to being interactive with your friends, at least in my opinion.

It is probably because of the way we use media in this day and age, which Couldry has shared the term “mass self-communication,” from Manuel Castells, the ability to make and distribute media contents on a second-to -second basis (Couldry, p.4). By taking something small, like the quiz, and posting it onto a media platform, it creates such impulses that make media a habit to be involved with everyday.

Athique, also inspired by Manuel Castells, brings up his idea of a “network society,” where connectivity, along with having a space, makes media, like the Web, alter the way people form new social relationships (Athique, p.14-15).

I am reminded of myself, and my trip to Thailand during the winter break, where for 20 days I am not only taking in a new surrounding, but gave my friends on Facebook or my followers on Instagram something to look forward to through updates. Not only did I have impulses to post pictures and videos, at the time, but I felt like there was power through my experience there because people were vivaciously living through my lens and maybe plan to travel there in the future.

Now that I look back to my album of the trip: there is something to contribute for everyone; there is something for those who favor culture,

foods,

and maybe just views.

Hence, the presence of a “cultural turn” to emerge out of media and for it to even exist in the first place.

So now I ask:

1. Where is there a line drawn between what content you see on media becomes useful or useless?
2. If you look back on your own content that you contribute, what is there to achieve? Does it reflect yourself? Does the possibility of connecting to somewhere far from you make a difference in what you are posting?

Photo Sources: Me!