Self Ethnography

Our task for this week was to go out and explore the world, and document our experiences with sketches/ drawings, note takings etc. The task was inspired by the opening of the film 'Stranger Than Fiction' shown below and we was encourage to try to capture a set of data, similar to the film that we could then play and experiment with way of potraying that cycle of information in a digital form.

Throughout the week I decided to focus on; my Facebook usage and interaction and the time I spent driving around Brighton. Once I reviewed the data I collected I was surprised with the relationship that had clearly formed between the amount of times I looked at Facebook, to the amount of times I used and interacted through it. I found that I looked at Facebook on my phone almost 100 times within the week, however, I only acted used it as a form of communication through; status's, comments etc 7 times in a week. Practically once a day compared to the 15 times I looked at Facebook. What I started to think about was the effect Facebook is having upon us in today's society. With 24 hours, 7 days a week access through apps on our phones, we can access Facebook whenever and wherever we like. However, If my data is anything to go by, although we can access it, we don't seem to used it to its full potential. What I noticed during this task was that if I was bored or my mind was heading towards a day dream, my body would seem to unconsciously look and scroll through my news feed on Facebook. I came to the conclusion that for a lot of people that I spoke to about my findings is that we use Facebook as a past time. Its quick, easy access and harmless entertainment to scroll through peoples lives in photos, comments and hash tags. This leads on to a common topic that today's culture is heavily reliant on social networks, digital products and user-generated content.

Here is how I decided to illustrate my findings;