Unit 3 Reflection

 Rory Day

Professor Weiner

WRT 205

4/23/2024

                        Unit 3 Reflection 

Finding the medium that stuck out to me the most was very difficult at first.  I had trouble finding a way to be creative with this project, because for the first 2-unit final assignments the only content I created were formal essays with loads of data and information.  The third assignment on the other hand made it so that I could not do that again and forced myself to go out of my comfort zone and experiment with other mediums.  Here is where I hit my major roadblock which was finding mediums that I wanted to engage in as well as a format that I was genuinely interested in.  On top of that I had to find a medium that would allow me to formulate my opinions and present all of the research that I had conducted throughout the entire semester.  Through many classes and hours spent brainstorming what I wanted to do, the final idea I landed on was to create a Prezi that had video interview questions woven into the presentation.  This was sort of the best of both worlds in my opinion because the topic that i chose surrounded social media's impact on mental health especially focusing on the youth.  I wanted to be able to present specific data points and facts as well as having personal anecdotes and experiences from people that I know.  This project was created for people the same age as myself, me included so getting to hear what they think about the topic from their own perspective was important for me to include.  I was worried that if I did a podcast, it would sway too far into the personal experience side of the presentation and not contain enough facts and evidence, and this was the best idea i could come up with to find a happy middle ground that I was genuinely excited about working on

The main focus of the unit three project was to create a call to action for the reader to reflect on their own life and see how this issue affects them personally.  Every person interacts with social media and the internet differently so the aim was to give different perspectives regarding what could happen and what may be happening to them and why.  The effects of social media use and overuse manifests and presents itself differently from person to person so it's important for the reader to understand themselves.  This project and the call to action I'm hoping can be the catalysts for people to make a positive change in their life, or at least be more cognizant of how their external environment may affect them, especially mentally.  I had a moment of realization that I needed to make a change in my own life which because of the way I allowed for social media and my phone as a whole to control so much of my life without even realizing.  People may not even realize the issues that the phone they use everyday hundreds of times could be negatively impacting so many aspects of life, their sleep and mood.  No one wants to be tethered to their phone to the point that they feel off when it is not with them.  Which is why at the conclusion of the Prezi I left the reader with questions for themselves to think about after intaking the information I presented them with.

One of the most important pieces of advice I heard during the peer review cycles from the three units came from Marissa where she said “I think it would be fun to add some images that correlate with the overall theme of creativity. Loved this”, because the creativity and visual aspect of my projects were the weakest part of my assignment and projects.  The visual aspect of the assignment was the least of my worries and often I neglected how important it could be for the project as a whole as well as painting a picture and presenting information.  This is something that I heavily attempted to work on and improve for the third unit final project.   Because of this comment I wanted to have every piece of information to be alongside a graphic or photo, and at times being the main focus on other slides of the Prezi.  Another comment that stuck with me was from Reggie where he said, “I would never have thought to make bullet points, and I think that was a brilliant move because it presents your analysis just as strongly”, which is one of the main reasons why I chose to make a Prezi as my unit 3 final project.  Bullet points can convey the same information as a larger writing piece but in a more palatable way for a larger audience.  The bullet pointed approach allowed me to vary how I presented my information while not losing the core information and ideas. This approach also lets the reader do some of the thinking and analysis on their own instead of me telling them what it means.  The information and statistics can resonate with people differently and can connect to their lives differently than me.  As said above, the entire goal of this project was to make the reader think and reflect on their own lives and come to a conclusion which may be different than the conclusion and realization that I came to.  The reassurance that bullet points as a means of conveying information to others worked and was engaging was all the comments I needed to continue forward with it for my final project in confidence.  I wanted to make my writing and opinions more engaging and interesting for the reader, so these comments were extremely important for how I approached my final project mainly but also bled into my assignments for the unit as well.

I am really happy with the way that this project and unit turned out, even though all of the struggles and difficult times that I faced on the path to completing this project.  I attempted to push my creativity into different mediums and tried to blend multiple mediums into one presentation and have it flow smoothly together. This time of the semester has been an extremely difficult one for me and the rest of the class as finals are closing in, and final projects are becoming due every day it feels like.  I am happy with the amount of time that I gave myself to complete this project, because in years prior I have always fallen into the trap of waiting till the last couple of days to work on the project and being forced to submit something that I am not truly proud of.  I blocked out my time appropriately to create something that I am truly proud of this time, which is difficult for me to say because in my opinion writing is one of my weakest parts of myself academically.  feeling confident in my writing and the way I presented my topic is not something that happens often, so I am thankful for this class being able to allow me to learn more and write about topics that genuinely interest me and spark my motivation to write.