Brizzy

Seeing as it's only an hour away and only costs $5 to get to, Gracie, Cierra and I decided to take a little day trip to Brisbane. I never expected that I would completely fall in love with it. You see, I've never considered myself a city person...but I've realized that's because my only reference of a city I've ever known growing up is New York, which really isn't like most cities. I'm not a fan of New York because it's dirty, smelly, loud, and the people aren't so nice. When we first got to Australia, we were in Sydney, which I definitely liked much better than New York but Sydney was very business-ey and uptight (compared to Surfer's Paradise, where almost no one wears shoes and I've never cared less about what I look like in public). Brisbane was the perfect mixture of a clean, friendly city and could satisfy my nature-loving needs. 

Pink bunny symbolizing the music festival

Walking along the bike path at the gardens

When we first arrived, we were on a desperate search for coffee. We found some in a crepe shop in the suburb just outside the city (Gracie had never heard of a crepe which I found horrifying and saddening). We found a spot to sit and enjoy our coffee with the view of the river right in front of us and the city just across the river. We were having a nice chat and I casually revealed that I used to eat wood as a child. In fact, my parents had to throw away my bed because there were so many bite marks. On our way to the bridge to cross over the river to get to the city, we passed some kind of wooden sculpture and Gracie asked if I wanted to eat it to which I replied, "I could definitely go for some mahogany for lunch!"

Little lizard friend!

Anyway, our first stop in the city was the botanical gardens which were GORGEOUS. I don't think I can express how happy I am when I am in a park like this. I began to mentally plan my wedding in this exact spot. There were all sorts of flowers and trees--some very interesting trees in fact called "African Sausage Trees", which really do look like they have wooden sausages growing from them. There are also some lilly ponds, where we kept seeing these giant lizard things! The best part is they basically didn't move at all so it wasn't scary--in fact they let us basically shove cameras in their face and they didn't move a muscle. However, when there was sudden movement, they would stand up on their hind legs and run which was hilarious.

Waterfall in the gardens

We then decided to take a peek in an art gallery just across the street from the gardens. One exhibit featured an artist who took broken or damaged figurines and put them back together, with a few extra touches. One I remember in particular was a couple delicate girl figurines with the corsets and big dresses and hats that the artist then painted camouflage and glued some plastic guns and knives in their hands--very funny and ironic! We then went into another exhibit that I believe was supposed to be a commentary on society's relationship with food. You walk in and on a big video screen is a super close-up of a strawberry, with gloved hands using tweezers to carefully pick off each individual seed on the strawberry. Then, there is another video of a watermelon being cut open, and gloved hands using tweezers to pick around until they pull out a tumor (a passionfruit). It was so closeup that you forget you are looking at a watermelon and not actual brain surgery. It was crazy!

African sausage trees

After that somewhat off-putting experience, we made our way to the music festival. There was an aboriginal performance that was really cool to see, as well as a choral performance and some acoustics. When it got dark, the lazer show began. I had never seen anything like this before! Across the water the buildings had lazer lights on them that went along to the beat of the music playing. There was also a structure that water came down from, creating a screen where lights were projected onto it in all sorts of patterns and colors. 

I definitely can't wait to visit Brisbane again. This weekend I am going with the IFSA-Butler group to our adventure weekend in Binna Burra! 

Cheers!

Lazer light show

Progress on Research Paper

For my New Communication Technologies class, I chose to write my essay on the topic:

Does the extensive use of social media have a positive or negative impact on the health of young people. What are the most recent academic papers on this topic? Clarify what all sides of the argument claim and only then offer your reasoned opinion based on facts.

To write this essay, I researched several journal articles and books written on the topic of social media and the impact it has on children and adolescents, with differing viewpoints on whether it is a more positive or negative feedback. I also used my survey on the impact of social media on youth created on SurveyMonkey to bring in my own findings. After evaluating the information and pulling in my own experiences with social media, I form my own opinion based on these facts.

Some of my research:

• 22% of teenagers log on to their favorite social media site more than 10 times a day, and more than half log on once a day. (O’Keeffe, G, MD & Clarke-Pearson, K, MD 2011)

• Some positive effects of social media-staying connected with friends and family, opportunities for community engagement such as raising money for charities, enhancement of individual and collective creativity, dialogue with others from diverse backgrounds and the sharing of ideas and knowledge. (O’Keeffe, G, MD & Clarke-Pearson, K, MD 2011)
•           A Survey of teens ages 12-17 found that 62% of online teens get news about current events and politics online. 31% get health, dieting or physical fitness information from the internet. 17% use the internet to gather information about topics that are hard to discuss like drugs or sexual health. (Lenhart, A et al. 2010).

• Some negative effects of social media-cyberbullying, sexting (20% of teens have sent or posted nude or seminude photos or videos of themselves online), Facebook depression, and privacy issues (O’Keeffe, G, MD & Clarke-Pearson, K, MD 2011).
• Studies have attempted to use personality as a potential predictor of use of social networking sites. Three of five personality factors were found to be typical of those who use social media: extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to new experiences. 
•          Those who were extraverted had many connections online as well as in the 'real world' and had higher self-esteem
•           A study of college students found that people who used Facebook less frequently felt less satisfied with their lives (Correa, T et al. 2010).

In my survey, I asked the question "Has the use of social media ever effected the way you feel about yourself (e.g looks, social status, economic status, etc)? and 88% of respondents said yes.

I also asked, "How accurately do you believe a person's Facebook profile depicts their personality and their life?" No one said "completely accurate", and 75% said "somewhat accurate".


References

Correa, T, Hinsley, A, & de Zuniga, H 2010, ‘Who Interacts on the Web?: The Intersection of Users’ Personality and Social Media Use’, Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 26, issue 2, pp. 247-253, viewed 26 August 2013, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563209001472.

Lenhart, A, Purcell, K, Smith, A, & Zickuhr, K 2010, ‘Social Media & Mobile Internet Use Among Teens and Young Adults’, Pew Research Center, viewed 25 August 2013, http://web.pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2010/PIP_Social_Media_and_Young_Adults_Report_Final_with_toplines.pdf.

Livingstone, S 2002, Young People and New Media: Childhood and the Changing Media Environment, SAGE Publications, viewed 30 August 2013, http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=e4AHeRPLs0oC&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=social+media+impact+on+young+people&ots=myiQwM0sIC&sig=VciCLnprTIsb5hvCCE-tSJEU0zs#v=onepage&q=social%20media%20impact%20on%20young%20people&f=false

Livingstone, S 2008, ‘Taking Risky Opportunities in Youthful Content Creation: Teenagers’ Use of Social Networking Sites for Intimacy, Privacy and Self-expression’, New Media & Society, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 393-411, viewed 30 August 2013, http://nms.sagepub.com/content/10/3/393.short.

O’Keeffe, G, MD & Clarke-Pearson, K, MD 2011, ‘The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and Families’, Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, vol. 127, no. 4, pp. 800-804, April 1, viewed 26 August 2013, http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/127/4/800.short.

My Library on Diigolet: https://www.diigo.com/user/danadrahos

Sunrises and Sea Turtles

This weekend was nothing short of great times with great people. I can't express enough how thankful I am to have made the friends I've made, and how we can share so much with each other after only knowing each other for a few months. My friends are so passionate about what they want to do in life--it honestly made me second guess my future. I'm just going to have to embrace the fact that I'm not sure what I want to do and just continue to explore the world and learn more about myself.

Me hiking the Noosa National Park

We went to Noosa, which is on the Sunshine Coast, a little north of the Gold Coast. The hostel was absolutely adorable--bright pink with painted designs on the doors, hammocks to relax in, Buddha statues everywhere and dragons on the walls, incense being burned--our own little hippie home. Noosa was a very different place than we were used to...lots of elderly folks...in fact, I commented on the fact that I'd never seen such a large concentration of older people in one place in my life. However, it was a nice change being in a calm peaceful place. Upon exploring the shops in town we realized that there was a jazz festival going on which was a nice surprise. I kept thinking about how great the lifestyle is here--no one is stressed out, working ridiculous hours and missing out on family time--the mindset here is "it will get done when it gets done, lets go have fun".

The girls and a boy we met at the hostel

That night, Gracie and I went to the beach to look at the stars and so she could take star trails, which in the world of photography means leaving the shutter open for a long amount of time so that as the Earth rotates it leaves a trail of light from the stars in the photo (I think). The pictures turned out AWESOME.

And, of course, we also had conversations about life.

Sunrise at Noosa

We decided that we should continue the tradition from Byron Bay of getting up to see the sunrise at each new place we go. It doesn't get old--this sunrise was absolutely gorgeous, pink clouds swirling in the sky and reflecting on the water to make it look like we were sitting inside a painting. After the sunrise, we went on to hike the national park. Hiking here is amazing because the lookouts are something I've never experienced before: stunningly blue oceans and..get this..DOLPHINS AND SEA TURTLES! Yes, we saw them and it was incredible. We continued on through the national park and found our own little private beach to take a quick nap on. Can't believe I can say I laid on my own private beach...in Australia.

When we got to the end of the national park, we ended up back downtown, and went to lunch at a place called Hogs Breath, where live music was playing. I had a delicious salad with chunks of pumpkin (they really like they're pumpkin here), almonds, cucumbers, tomatoes, and Australian feta cheese. A great end to the day was going out for drinks with all the girls, talking about our highlights of the day and having a lot of laughs.

Hells Gates

We decided to get up for the sunrise again..and it seemed like a great idea at the time because the previous day we felt so active and were able to fit so much into the day and didn't understand why we don't get up this early every day...but we really hit a wall. Don't get me wrong, it was just as gorgeous as before, except this time afterwards we all went back and passed out and you couldn't get us to wake up if the world was ending. Once we were able to peel ourselves out of our beds, we headed over to the beach again to explore the caves. This was SO COOL. After basically scaling a mountain, we were greeted by the view of a huge cave with tide pools of crystal clear water that we could swim in and jump into. Probably the most fun part was deciding to let Gracie take Victoria's Secret-eqsue model pictures (yep that happened).

These weekend trips just keep getting better and better! This weekend we are going to Brisbane for a festival, stay tuned!

Cheers!