How will I use social media in the future? - Assignment 4D

So how would I use social media in the future? Well that's kind of a hard question, because I already am quite "extreme" user of it. I use many social medias and know quite well how to benefit them with different things. As I've said earlier, I handle our basketball club's homepage and updating it and also I'm the admin of our Facebook page. Also Instagram account for our club has been under a consideration for a while now and it might take place on this autumn.

For our homepage I've been updating very precisely every event, happening, practice and game and in addition also pictures, news, briefings and reports. I like to update it and want to see everything in order. It's kind of nice to know that visitors will see clean and interesting site and that it's easy to use and find different things. Pictures are probably the most wanted stuff and people always wait for them after events and games, I've heard both negative and positive feedback about them but mostly people think that it's nice to see what's going on events if they're not able to be on the spot.

Our Facebook page is quite new thing but I've been updating it also very frequently. There's also photos and information, everything almost same as in our homepage. Facebook is fast and easy way to update situation even during the game, so people at home will see the score also. Newest thing on our page is videos. We took part in this famous tournament in the end of July and one of our helping coaches was able to film clips from our games. They appeared to Facebook right after they were filmed so players families and friends were able to follow our games almost as live game. That was good idea and I heard really positive feedback about these videos. It might be a good idea to take these clips also in future games. Also I might add that thanks to technology, we were able to publish clips from two different places and games at the same time; one of us used Facebook's "live video" feature and second one filmed clips with a tablet and published them straight after filming.

Twitter is still quite new for me but I might use it also as a channel for our club. But I think that not so many of our players parents aren't really using it so benefits of this account might not be so good as they might be in some different country, like USA. Actually I think that these existing channels are more than enough for some parents and if I create the Instagram account, it would complete the "circle". I've described earlier how good Twitter could work and how we could use it, but I'm guessing that it would need some luck also to work in the way we planned.

When thinking about my future occupation I don't think that I could really use social medias at my work. I'm gonna be a registered nurse and due to privacy and security policies it might risk patient's medical reports and my career, if I tried to use social media in some ways. At least for now, but you never know how things will be in the future. I read an article about future doctors and nurses and if it will be true, there will be no actual human to human contact. Everything is handled and taken care of through computers or different machines and you don't even need to actually see the doctor, if you have some issues. You just sit on your computer and take care of your medical condition through the cables. Haha, well let's hope this will take many years before it comes true but when we know how fast everything has been evolving in the last couple years and new things being invented every day, it might be actual way of handling things after maybe (hopefully at least) 10-20 years.

I think this will be my last blog text and last part of the course, I thank everyone who's maybe been reading my thoughts and texts. It was nice to write something though at first I thought that I would be really bad at this and wouldn't have anything to say but once when started writing, it was kind of easy and thoughts just kept coming through my fingers. Also English is not my mother language, and you might notice it, but it was nice and also kind of easy to write in English. I liked it and I think that this improved my English writing skills as well. I also think that I learned some new things about social medias during this course and it's a good thing. So I'll finish this course now and THANK YOU for everybody. Especially big thanks for my group, with whom we did this quite big assignment. :)

Goodbye, farewell and maybe we'll bump into each other in the social medias someday.

// PS. About that new social media I tried in the beginning of this course, Snapchat... Well.. I'm hooked with it. I use it daily and think that it's almost a must-have application for everyone. Thanks, now I have one more application to open many times a day and keep up with it. I almost don't have time for Pokemon GO with all of these applications. ;)

Evaluation for one of the implementations - Assignment 4C

I had to evaluate one of the implementations someone else had made during this course. Actually I didn't have many choices to pick from and I don't know if this is because I couldn't use this wiki-site we have or if many of the groups hasn't returned their implementations yet. (I'm not sure if I could have used only implementation plan to evaluate, but I wanted the whole creation including the last part, video or summary. If I could have used just plan also, then I would have had more to choose from.) But I chose this one, because it seems to be quite interesting and it's in touch with my field, kind of. I chose implementation which deals with peer support. It's made by Kaisa Ruikkala, Minja Hongisto, Laura Tasala & Susanna Juuth. Minja & Laura are in charge of English translation and presentation and Finnish parts are handled by Kaisa & Susanna. 

Name of the implementation is Vertti Vertaistuki and basically it is a peer support network for parents of preschoolers. Also I think that it might be a good way to get in touch with children and living with them even if you don't have kids, would have them or miss them. First thought was also that this would be good to use with social and health care students, when they're studying about children. I thought that it would be helpful for students to read about real life incidents and difficulties with children, especially if they don't have kids. Second thought was that this sounds really good and actually needed network, because nowadays many people are "suffering" with their difficulties and maybe need to realize that they're not alone with their problems. I'm not sure if that's because the world and people has been changing so much or do people dare to talk about their problems more openly than before or what, but somehow it seems that kids and youth are more undisciplined nowadays. Or that could be that I'm getting old and can't stand kids and youth as well as younger.. But also nowadays people dare to seek for help and Internet is a good way for it because you don't need to really see any people or even show your actual name, if you don't want to. Okay, but let's dive in with this implementation. 

I opened the plan and at first look it seems really clean and easy to read. There's both Finnish and English plans together, but they're divided and does not mix up together. It's very easy to read just the side you want to read. Plan is very thorough and you get good idea about what they're aiming with it. I also found myself nodding when reading this, it sounds so good. They're planning a blog and Pinterest-site as a peer support for parents of small children. In the blog they will gather posts about current issues and relevant topics, it's open for everyone but there's an admin who checks and accepts every post before publishing it. That's very good idea because that way you get the real issues and topics to the audience, but you don't allow any "trolls" or advertisers etc. take a lead in the blog. It also makes it possible that there will be topics from border to border and everyone might get the support they're looking for. Personal blogs are also good idea, but the problem with them is that they're only written by one person and because of that they're also dealing with just one kind of problems and you might need to seek for a long time for a right blog and writer. Many writers and participants guarantee that there's almost every issue handled. Pinterest is also modern and good way to provide some help and support people in need. As they write in their plan they will gather ideas and tips on their Pinterest account and it makes it easy to find some new things to try to. 

It's good that these both platforms can be used anonymously and you don't need to even leave a comment, if you don't want to. Anonymity makes it easier and more comfortable to even seek for support. I agree with them when they're writing that this combination of Pinterest and blog will provide a versatile and comprehensive channel for furthering the well-being of parents. This plan sounds very good for me and I can see that they've really thought about things and invested on this. It sounds so good that it makes me wonder how this hasn't been invented before. All in all, the plan is very thorough, easy to read and gives to reader very clear picture about purpose and environment of the implementation. You get the information fast and don't need to dig for it. Also I think that their target group is just right and that they would actually be in need for this kind of thing.

Between the plan and the implementation, I took a look about their self-evaluation. They've described things and evaluated their works almost same as I would've. I opened their video presentations about the implementation. They've made two of them: one in Finnish and one in English. They tell clearly about their implementation and meanings of it through this short video. I think that if I've only watched this video and not read the plan before it, I still would've get the full picture what they're talking about. Talking in both videos is clear and easy to understand and follow with. The English version is quite a bit longer than the Finnish version and at first I thought it might be because of the problems with the language, but the language is really clear and the speaker has very understandable accent. Length of the video is because it shows really precisely how to use blog site, for example it shows where is the headline of the blog and where you can find all posts. I don't know if that's because I consider myself as skilled when it comes to Internet and different social media platforms, but I think that this is kind of pointless and just takes too much time to watch the video. I think that people would know how to use and move on the blog site without the instructions. After blog there's also instructions of how to use Pinterest. Now that might be useful but I think that it takes bit too long. If it would shorter, it might be a very good thing. 

Apart from that minor flaw this whole (including plans and both Finnish and English implementations) implementation is really good and clear. It's short and pithy and that's nice because I think that people wouldn't want to watch long and/or boring information videos. I think that the Finnish version could as well be some advertisement video for the Vertti Vertaistuki blog and Pinterest. This kind of peer support platform would quickly gather people in need together and really give the support they're looking for. It's really good idea and many people would actually need that. I don't know how to say this more accurately but this implementation is SUPER GOOD! Good work ladies, I really really liked your implementation! *And here you could set thumb (or two) upwards*

Our implementation - Assignment 4A&B

Okay, so as described earlier we decided to give a try for a Twitter account. And especially an account for basketball club, which is quite active in other social medias and sites. Here's a link to our Twitter page, be my quest and take a closer look about it. As you can see, it doesn't really have much information yet and might not have ever. But it's completed layout for our sports club and ready to be used. 

Here you have link to our video presentation about our implementation.

I said that our club is also active in other social medias and sites, so I thought that I'd also give our Facebook page and homepage for a "big" audience to see. Here they are, you're welcome.
Ylivieskan Kuula - koripallo Facebook and our homepage

You're welcome to become our follower and also welcome to give some feedback, if you feel like you want to.

// Contents of these links are only in Finnish

Our plan to raise knowledge about local sports club. - Assignment 3C

In my group we have altogether three people. Our decision was quite easy, because I'm in touch with the youth and coaching a basketball team. So we decided to take this ground and benefit it in our assignment. This was the choice, because it's kind of the easy way of doing this assignment and I've got quite much knowledge about this area. We didn't have same educations or anything like that, so we didn't even think about using education or school in our assignment. Actually we didn't even discuss about anything else beside this, because it was okay for everybody after someone asked what hobbies do we have and could we use them. I'm quite happy with this choice, because it may benefit me also later.

So our target group exactly is youth, from age 7 to 16 and basically now we have just girls but I don't think that this will have an impact on the assignment, because I hope that we'll have boys as well some day and could also benefit results of this assignment with them. Also in our club we have actually older girls than 16, but it's easier to target just a certain age group. Girls have been playing basketball more or less, some of them has just started now and some of them has been playing for several years. All of them live nearby, maximum distance of 30 km from my home town and our head gym. Some of them has several hobbies along with the basketball, some of them are concentrating only for basketball.

We chose Twitter, mainly because we couldn't choose Facebook. Facebook would be the obvious choice and also the easiest one. It would catch most of the people and provide a large platform for extending knowledge about our sports club. Actually I already have a Facebook site for our group, I've created it about a year ago because I think that it's important and useful for a sports club to have it's own Facebook site. You can provide common knowledge, information about games and tournaments, share pictures and videos from events and many more things through only one page and every one, who's interested, will have the same knowledge and information. 

So Twitter is our choice. I haven't used Twitter really, only when commenting some big games like basketball European championship games and ice hockey world championship games. So I don't have very much knowledge about Twitter and how to use it, but I think that quite many people use it daily and also I know that many big sports clubs use Twitter and share their events, pictures, information etc. through it. Also I know that using Twitter is kind of easy, you only need to write what you want to say and publish it. You may use hashtags, if you want, but that's not compulsory. In our assignment we'll use Twitter as I already described above: for sharing information, events, pictures etc. 

Possible privacy and security issues? Every time when using social media and communicating through it you can't be 100% sure about with whom you're communicating. It's quite easy to pretend to be somebody else or even steal someone's accounts and passwords, if you want. But I think that when using it for things like our assignment; youth clubs, it's quite trustworthy way. Youth has been using social media for a long time and they're like "fish in the sea" with it. I think that this is smooth way for communicating with youth and providing knowledge and information. Also for their parents it's a good reason to learn using different social medias, so that they also get the information about their children's hobbies etc. Of course you can't or shouldn't share personal information or anything like that about your players or yourself (if you don't want to) in social media like this, but it's actually not even necessary. Also you have to remember that for example if I was using this Twitter account, I would have to think carefully before sharing something not regarding to basketball. It wouldn't be nice to notice that you've shared something what divides opinions and soon people might be hating your club because of some opinion you've given away through your public account.
Also with pictures and names you have to make sure, that every one are comfortable with their information and pictures being public. You can't share any personal information or pictures without their permission. 

All in all I think that Twitter is good and not so common choice. I think that through Twitter account you can really share information and feelings, so that people following you will get in touch with your club. Updating Twitter is easy and quick and you can do that even if our club is playing in other places and like 5 minutes before starting the game or something like that. You can update scores during the game and share pictures from the game, if you want to. It's really interesting choice and it would be nice to see, would people really use this when there's Facebook.

Using social media - guidelines for registered nurses - Assignment 2C

I Googled for instructions to use social media at a working community and found guidelines for registered nurses. Now I know these are not designed for a certain workplace, but because I'm about to be a registered nurse and it's what interests me, I chose these guidelines to talk about this time.

I found these guidelines from a site for registered nurses, hosted by Sairaanhoitajaliitto which is a trade union for a registered nurses. And clearly these are in Finnish, so I'm translating these so they may not be in exact forms as shown in the website.

So first there's some general thoughts about using social media as a registered nurse, examples where and how to use it. Also there's a notification that sharing different social media channels for professional and private use or creating a profile for just a professional use is something to consider about. Professional channels can be used when working if your employer allows it and these could be used for example to get some new information or to consult some other professionals. Also there's a reminder that everything you will write, will remain for good and you can't forecast, which will spread and how widely. So you have to just write things, which you could write for a public board also. Reliability of the information is always to be considered carefully, because you can't never be sure about it. And before these certain guidelines, there's also a bold line which says that when using social media, you should always obey the same ethical principles as you're obeying in any other nurse's work.

1. You should use social media for the good of your patient. Meaning that you should develop tools, which would also benefit your patients. Without them you can also use social media as a tool, by sharing some useful information through it and by consulting other colleagues, when your patient needs it.

2. Always remember professional maneuvers, when keeping in touch with patients. Don't take care of your patient's sorrows through social media, if the tool is not certainly designed for it. Also consider carefully will you friend your patient in any social media, when you're using your private profile. Don't share anything, which could be insulting but write about nursing with respect for your patients.

3. Remember confidentiality and keeping silence. When writing something about a certain patient, remember to ask for a permission use patients facts or change details so much, that identification of this patient will be impossible. Never publish anything, even in private communities, which would make your patient identifiable. Don't share pictures or documents from your workplace without a permission from the participants. Always remember to pay attention to your workplace's own rules about using social media.

4. Take care of your own safety and privacy. Use strong, incalculable passwords and always check your privacy settings. Don't open links which seems suspicious. Report about information security problems, if you notice something. Think about when and where you should tell about your private things and how detailedly you are telling about them.

5. Be responsible about your profession's and employer's public image. Remember that you're in creating image about registered nurses always, when articulating about your profession - even when you're not on duty. Towards your employer, you have obligation for loyalty, which designates that you won't cause any harm to your employer with your opinions and speeches, even on your spare time. Notice, that you and your workplace can also be identifiable when you're using nickname by combining things.

6. Use for a common good. Network with other professionals and gather some useful sources of information. Share information, which will benefit other professional, for example from articles or education you've taken. By means of social media participate to conversations regarding to health, wellness and quality of life and have an influence on decision making on both national and international level.

I think that these are really good and useful guidelines for registered nurses. These should be taken note of when studying and always be remembered. I think that at least some older generation nurses aren't aware of these guidelines and it would be really helpful, if these were visible on their working places also. Additionally there's of course workplace's own guidelines and rules for using social media, but these are universal terms which should be always observed. In a way these rules are valid for everyone, even if not working as a nurse and these should be everyday terms for everyone. If even half of people remembered these, social media could be better place to participate in.

I don't know who exactly is responsible for these rules but I'm guessing that there's some person, who's specialized for using social media and is creating these for everyone else. I think this person is in every workplace, or at least should be. When there's person corresponding about social media, he/she will make sure that everyone is aware of the guidelines and rules and will get to know them. I think that at least PPSHP (= Health Care District of Northern Ostrobothnia) has couple of these persons who are specialized to social media and are taking care of the common guidelines and rules and when necessary also updating them and creating new ones. In my opinion every workplace should have at least one of these persons and he/she does the rules co-operating with the employer. That's how you make sure that everyone has the same rules and are aware of them. Also I think that these ditto guidelines are good for everyone and could be used in any workplace, not just nursing places. I don't have anything to add to them, just thumbs up.

Resource: Sairaanhoitajaliitto. 2014. Sairaanhoitajien sosiaalisen median ohjeet. https://sairaanhoitajat.fi/jasenpalvelut/ammatillinen-kehittyminen/sairaanhoitajien-sosiaalisen-median-ohjeet/. Viitattu 9.6.2016.

My digital identity - Assignment 2B

I've Googled myself from time to time. It's because I've wanted to keep up with what Google will tell about me for other people. I've always known that everything you post and publish to anywhere in Internet, will remain and may come up later. That's why I've never published anything, which would embarrass or humiliate me or my relatives or friends. At least I think and hope so.


I'm from that generation, whom has kinda grown up together with the Internet and parts of social media, so I'm sure that there has been some mistakes for all of us but first (and worst) thing I can think of, are this poor quality webcam pictures, which I published to this first "social media" service, picture gallery called ii2 when I was about 11 years old. Haha, anyone who remembers that? My generation has been almost the first ones to discover the world of Internet and there has been certain things, which everyone has been using at least couple times, like Arctic.net, Habbo, ii2, IRC-Galleria etc. and we've been learning together to use and benefit from Internet. Nowadays it's quite much more, than it was back then and I think that understanding, that EVERYTHING what you publish anywhere (including Facebook, Instagram, ask.fm etc.) will not disappear and it may meet up with you, even if you try to remove it and wouldn't want to see it ever again. Also I think that kids nowadays won't think that also your future boss and co-workers could find everything about you.

So what I'm getting, when I Google myself? First there's my Facebook profile and some posts, I've published there. Nothing special with those. Then there's some information about my titles and doings with my hobby, basketball. And I'm also doing some kind of genealogy sometimes, so Google shows my MyHeritage-site. Also some really old athletics results are there, they've been published on the newspaper and are now to be found from Internet too.

When examining what pictures Google shows, there's also really nothing special. One picture about my face and the rest of them are pictures taken by me, which is quite a lot. There's pictures concerning to basketball and some old pictures concerning to horses. There's no videos to be found under my name. I think that's simply because I've never published any videos.

All in all, I'm quite happy what Google shows about me. There's real information about me and nothing embarrassing or false information. I'm pleased with that and I'd like to keep it what way. Only thing I'm maybe little bit uncomfortable with, is that my phone number is also to be found from there. But it has to be founded from my hobby's website, because my position, so I can't complain about that. Everything else is just fine and I think that many people would find much more about themselves by Googling.

Digital identity is formed with all, what you post and publish to Internet. But as seen with the celebrities, you can also manipulate information and pictures, so every time the digital identity is not truthful. You can manipulate information by publishing something, for example by editing one's Wikipedia site. Many people consider Wikipedia as a reliable and truthful source of information, but to be true, it's not. Everyone can edit these pages in Wikipedia and change the information for what they'll like. For example when Finland lost ice hockey world championship, there was this page about silver, which was edited to fit to Finland's medal. And when talking about celebrities, there's many different news sites, which will have their own opinions and releases, and all of them will change, what is being showed about celebrities when Googling them. Also, it will change accordingly to popularity of pages and news. It's quite awful, what you can find about celebrities from the Internet. I mean that there could be ALL about their lives and they can't control, what is being written and published about them.

If there's no information online or any social media services about somebody, I think that person would live very secret life and nowadays it also means, that he/she is not using any social medias. If you're using some of them, Google surely would know about that and show them to the searcher. On the assignment there was this question: "should there be any information (about a political, CEO or communication professional)?". Yes is my answer, because nowadays almost everyone is using some of social medias and being out there, so it sounds really odd that there's no information about somebody. For example speaking about politicians, Google could bring them closer to ordinary people by telling us at least something about one's life. It's almost bad thing, if there's no information about politician because then people might think that there's something to hide and he/she is not a trustworthy person.

Privacy and confidentiality - Assignment 2A

In this assignment I was told  to search for a different forums and blogs etc., where people are discussing about privacy and questions regarding to confidentiality. I tried, but I didn't find any active discussions, which I would wanted to participate in. I'll post links here, if I find an interesting conversation to participate in. However I've participated conversations in our Facebook group, where has been many different articles and news linked about privacy, confidentiality and identity.

What privacy aspects should employees be aware while using social media tools? 
At first employees must pay attention to their profile, is it their own private profile or are they using it also with official, work-related things? That's important thing, because if you're using it also for work stuff, you can't share all your personal stuff and not even all of your opinions because that's causing confusion with people like are your opinions your own opinions or also your workplace's or company's opinions? Also if you use your profile as both, private and official profile, you have to be ready to answer work-related questions all the time and as participating discussions, remember that you're speaking also as a deputy of your profession. On Facebook there's many different forums and places to discuss about the incidents of the world and you have to be careful what you say out loud, because that may not be removable afterwards. When using your personal profile, it's also important to remember that people may know where you work and what's your position and by that connect your opinions to your company's opinion.

Nowadays for example Skype is important tool of communication in many companies and professions. Many workplaces give their employees their own accounts to Skype and it's used as a communication tool either with your co-workers or negotiations or something similar. You have to remember that you're using it with your work accounts and it's not advisable to use it to manage your personal liaison. If you're using your account with both, work and personal things, remember to keep your work-related stuff to your self, not share it to everybody on your contact list.

It's important that employees know the common rules, which are made for your own working community. This way everybody knows about the same rules and should also follow these. This can also ease controlling what employees are sharing and saying through social media, because co-workers know about the rules and they can point out, if something is not acceptable.

What are the benefits of openness and transparency? 
First benefit of openness coming to my mind is that you create a trustworthy and honest image of yourself. Of course people can't be sure, is that really you but at least you're giving this image for outsiders. For example this Finnish shop Jounin Kauppa broke through and became to everyone's knowing using Facebook. The owner, Sampo, is sharing almost everything on Facebook and that gives people certain, honest and reliable, image of the shop and it's owner and also brings the owner closer to people. That's why many people are taking trips to see this Jounin Kauppa and hoping to see also the owner. Openness and transparency can relieve your advertising game and make your company famous in a days, and it doesn't take lot of money. It also can give you new associates and co-workers etc.

Being open and transparent you can also get help from the other people, share your knowledge and
skills and it can also stop you from making mistakes. It brings you closer to the people and makes you available (which isn't maybe that good thing) and approachable. You can get new viewpoints to your opinions or doings or even to your innovations by sharing them and getting advice and thoughts from other people.

When is it beneficial for the employer and employees to share personal information online? 
Well in my opinion it's never quite good nor safe to share your really personal information online, but some of them maybe yes. For example if you need to contact someone like right now and you don't have his/hers phone number and email is just too slow way of contacting, you can find the phone number online or contact through social media, for example Facebook Messenger and reach necessary person(s) in minutes.

It might also help bring people closer to you and give positive image of you. For example some of this big corporation leaders have been creating positive image of themselves and their companies by giving out of their charity or voluntary works through social media. It's kinda like free and positive advertisement to you and your company, if you share something positive and respected things in your profile. Of course people might not be sure about truthfulness of these things, but at least some of them believe you and your created image.

What kind of damage can occur if privacy is not taken care of?
The worst image coming to my mind right now is that someone might steal your identity and mess around with it. It can make serious damage to you, because after that people won't know, which were your own opinions and sayings and which where this criminals. So you can lose your whole identity for good, if someone stoles it. If you share too much your personal things, it might get easy to steal your accounts both your personal and your professional accounts. Also this can cause serious problems, especially if your professional account gets stolen and is related to your workplace. Worst comes to worst, you might get fired because it's your job to keep your professional passwords as unsolvable as possible and in this case, when your profile gets stolen, you've made it too easy to find out and maybe also given out your company's important information by letting somebody to break in to your account.

You might get your whole company to danger if things get to that point, where your customer register spreads around and everything, what your company has been participating in surfaces. It can also make it easy to break in to company's information system and getting EVERYTHING from there, including everyone's passwords and personal files etc.

How people (could) use social media? - Assignment 1C

I'm considering ways, how people could use or are using social media on my field of study and as a bonus, also how it could be used with my hobby/my current job. This is because of my field of study, I'm studying in social- and health sector to be a registered nurse. My first thought with this assignment was, that maybe there's not so many ways how to benefit social media with nursing. Let's see what I could think about and then take a look about social media and my hobby.

Social media and nursing. Well, because there's so strict confidentiality obligation, it's quite hard to think about ways of using social media. At least at first. But then I remembered that for example OYS has been trying out and taking for daily use these tablet PC:s. Nurses and doctors are using tablets to document everything and what I've heard, it has really eased up documenting. It's an easy way to document while you're with the patient and make sure, that you will remember to document every single detail and not forgetting half while taking care of other patients and getting to document when your shift is almost over. This is not actually social media, at least I don't think so, but it's related to it and I think that it's quite interesting, how you can unite using tablets and nursing.

There has also been conversation about future hospitals and doctors. Let's take the doctors and see, what future may give them and patients. In future, it could be possible, that you wouldn't need to go to the hospital at all, but you could sit back on your computer and take care of a doctor's appointment through it. I don't quite remember how this was told to be possible on one magazine I read, but it was something like this: you could tap your symptoms to one kind of an application and it would run through it's large amount of knowledge and finally give you a diagnosis. After that you could chat with your doctor, who would know about this diagnosis and through chat determine if the diagnosis is right and then give you a right recipe. If any blood samples or something is needed, there would be maybe one nurse, who would come straight away and take this sample and deliver it to the laboratory. This sounds funny and quite scary, because how much this will increase the risk of wrong diagnosis or even the risk of wrong medication? But this might be everyday convention for our children or grandchildren. 

Through social media patients could get peer support and find out about their diseases. Well, they can also now Google it and wait for cancer diagnosis to appear, but it might ease up thing if there was some kind of an application, which has gathered right contents from every diseases and conditions and would give you right information, when you search with name or just symptoms. Also there could be listed some peer support groups and blogs concerning to your searches. 

This is what I could think about using social media on my field of study, it's really hard because of the strict confidentiality obligation. But at least I got something. I've been playing basketball almost my whole life and nowadays I'm also coaching it and acting as a vice-chairman for our department. I've been using social media in many ways to keep in touch with the players, their parents and interested people. I've also used it to advertise our sport and to get some new interested people to try it. I think that I could use social media even more, because these days everyone is using it and our sport would get much more attention, if it's advertised through social media. 

First thing what I did, when I started coaching was to create a WhatsApp-group for our team. That's an easy way to keep up with the players and announce, if there's any changes or something with schedules etc. Also it was a great way for team members to get to know each other by chatting through WhatsApp. At first I exchanged messages with parents through emails but after maybe a year, almost every one of them had also WhatsApp and we created a group for parents and coach also. That really eased messaging and changing thoughts and finding operators for everything. 

As my next move, I created a group for Facebook. There interested people could follow up our schedules and stuff, but pretty soon I discovered that it would be easier to create a site for our sport. I did it and now everyone can just like it and get our news straight to their news feed. It's easier, because I don't need to accept them as a group members but they can like the site and participate to everything. 

I've been using Facebook and its groups also as an advertisement tool. I made up nice pictures with information about our schedules and happenings and groups and then just posted them into different groups in Facebook. Thanks to Facebook there's been quite many new players and interested people. In a way our site is also an advertisement tool, because when I post something to it, post will pop up for my friends and for friends of them, who has liked about our site. Also I'm guessing that Facebook will offer it to people who has liked about something similar. So Facebook is free and practical way of advertising something. 

I've been also responsible for our websites the whole time, updating some news and pictures from our events and games etc. Using social media you can get visibility for your website also, because it's really easy to share something from our website in Facebook or Instagram or Twitter.. If I update something with a certain hashtag to my Instagram, it will go straight to front page of our website also. That way people can keep up with current happenings and get to look our normal days and events, if they can't be participating. I've been thinking about creating an own Instagram account for your team, but I haven't created it yet because I'm not sure, there would be enough pictures etc. to keep this account alive. Maybe I'll create it when the fall comes, but I'm not so sure about that. 

As you can notice, there's many ways using social media as a tool with your studies or career or hobby etc. This "list" even hasn't everything, there's much more how you can benefit it but at this time, I won't write about them anymore. I really think that social media will ease up advertising and tempting new persons for a certain things and maybe it will even lower people's doorstep to participate some events and new hobbies. 

Testing a new social media application! - Assignment 1B

I thought for a while, which would be good application or service to explore. When thinking, it felt like there's no any new social media for me except this, which I finally chose, Snapchat. I've seen my little sister and many of my friends using this application and never actually felt interested about using it, before now. So I downloaded it to my phone and created an account.

Snapchat is this instant message service for your phone, which you can download from your app store. It was founded by Evan Spiegel and Jonathan May. In May of 2014 users were sending over 700 million pictures and videos daily. In November of 2015 Snapchat released, that it has over 100 million users in a day and about 60% of them are publishing their own contents. Over 5 billion videos are being watched in Snapchat daily, according to their Wikipedia-site. In Finland Snapchat has become popular during 2015, when it got plentiful attention from the media. Though the youth has been using it since 2014.

User can take pictures and short videos, add some text and "stamps" for those and then send them either only for your chosen friend/friends or for all users, to your public "MyStory". When you add something to your story, it will be public for next 24 hours and everyone can see it. When you take pictures or videos, they are called "snaps" or in Finnish "snäp". When sending your "snap" you can choose, how long it will be showing receiver, from 1 to 10 seconds. After that chosen time "snap" will be deleted from receiver's application and all servers. If you want, you can save your pictures and videos for your phone. Receiver can only take an screenshot, if he/she wants to save something.

And my experiences? Well, at this moment I've been using it only for couple days. These additional "filling" to your picture is quite nice, I think. There's plenty of those fillings, for example different dogs and flower headwears etc. and some of them are doing something "extra" when you open your mouth or lift your eyebrows. Although they're not really necessary, just some extra to cheer up your pictures or videos. I've only been sending pictures and videos to my sister and I think it's quite simple and everything, but still I prefer WhatsApp to send messages and pictures. Watching my friends stories is quite nice, because that way you can get a quick flash about what your friend has been doing. But still, I think that I would ask about his/her day through WhatsApp. Maybe it will take couple more days to get really comfortable with this application, but at this moment I think that I may not continue using this app in the future. Let's see what happens. I'll try to remember update it here, if I continue using this and what's changed since first impression if that happens.

My thoughts about Instagram - Assignment 1A

Last time I wrote about Facebook, now it's time for a second application I'm using a lot, several times during a day. I give you Instagram, you folks. Instagram has become a part of my daily life and almost the first thing, what I'm doing after I wake up is browsing through Instagram and the new pictures there.

So what's Instagram? It's this free application, where you can share your pictures and videos and comment and like about other's pictures and videos. It was launched in October of 2010 and had quickly over million users. According to Instagram's Wikipedia-site, in December of 2014 there was over 300 million registered users in the Instagram. This application have to be downloaded from your store (App Store etc.) and then you create an account, where you can post pictures and 60 sec long videos. You can also use different filters to make your pictures (or you in the picture) look better.

The idea of this application is kinda same as the Pinterest. You create an account, add your friends and maybe some celebrities and then you can follow their updates from your feed. You can like about them and after liking, you can find all your likes on one site, so it's easy to find them again. Among people, you can also find bands, movies, animals, recipes, designs, art, artists, TV-series etc. from there and all of them are posting their own pictures or videos. One of the main thing in Instagram is these hashtags. It basically means this # sign and some text after it, like #Instagram. Hashtags makes it easy to find stuff, which you are interested and might like about. If you want share something with just one friend, there's also change of private conversation. You can share pictures or videos privately with someone or just talk. Also, you can tag people you want to see something and they will get an notification about it.

Instagram has forbidden downloading pictures, which include harming yourself or which could provoke to harm yourself. Also you can't download naked pictures, part naked pictures or any sexually suggestive pictures to Instagram. Oh, and also, you have to be at least 13 years old to register in this application and to use it. Although, I know many under this age, who are using this app and maybe also posting kinda doubtful pictures about themselves. I think that it's somehow fashionable for these kids to post provoking or suggestive pictures in different social media applications.

Although there is these certain rules, I think that some people are not following them. There has been all kind of pictures and videos public on my feed and this "preferred" site on Instagram. Although, I think that this problem is common in almost any applications, which include people and pictures.

My thoughts about Facebook - Assignment 1A

As you could read from my last post, there's many social media applications I'm using currently and almost daily. This assignment was to write about two of the most familiar applications. As you can guess, I'm writing about Facebook and Instagram, because these are the two "main" applications for me and I'm using them usually several times a day. 

First, let's take a look about Facebook. Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg with the help from his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Matt Cohler, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin. The main guy was Mark Zuckerberg and he kinda stole the idea from guys, who had been inventing this same kind of application, called ConnectU. Facebook was launched 2004 and at first, it was designed only for university. Although the word was out there and Facebook was getting more attention and more users daily. When the firs year was ending, there was already almost million users in Facebook. Next year, 2005, Facebook really broke trough and reached also abroad which caused that in the end of 2005 there was five and half million users in Facebook. 

In Finland, Facebook started to spread out in October 2007. There was 58 million active users in Facebook and the translation in Finnish was ready in the spring of 2008.  There is probably about 2 million Finnish users, which is kinda funny because there is only 5 489 821 residents in Finland. So that makes it that almost half of the population is in the Facebook. Over a half of the Finnish users is women, according to Wikipedia site. Nowadays Facebook is also a strong way of marketing and advertising for your company, team, group, band or almost anything you can imagine. 

It's an easy way to find old and new friends, when you join to Facebook. You can add anyone you want, but it's their choice if they're going to add you or not. Then you can keep up with their updates and pictures, which are popping up on your news feed. More you visit or like person's updates or pictures, more likely it's that those updates and pictures and stuff keep on coming on your feed. It's nice that you can for example add your old school friends and change your thoughts easily through computer or a cell phone. Also you can find new friends through different groups and sites, if you're social person and in need of a new friends. It's also kinda safe to make new friends in Facebook, because usually you have to use your real name and pictures. But also you can choose, which information you are sharing with your friends and those people, who are not in your friend list. 

As I wrote last time, there is also a change of establishing different groups and sites. Sites are usually for a companies, groups etc. and on them, you can easily update your feelings and happenings with pictures or videos or just with the words. You can like the site you want and then it's really easy to keep up with the updates on the site, because they are popping up on your front page, when your browsing through your Facebook news feed. The more you visit on the site, more you see on your feed. Groups are a bit different from the sites and you can create a group for almost anything. Nowadays the most used groups are these second hand store groups, I guess. There's those special groups for almost anything beside the "old", familiar groups where you can sell and buy almost anything you want. Selling and buying on Facebook is pretty easy, though it also tempts many scammers. Along with these sites, you can create a group for example for your friends or team or congenial people. You can hide your group, which means that not everyone can find or join it and they have to ask for a permission to join. This is useful, when you need a group for example planning some events or parties. Events are also a useful thing on Facebook. You can create a special event and then invite people to it. It makes it easy to know how many people are gonna attend and to hear from them before and after event. There is also a change of providing information, like payments and maps etc. 

Nowadays the most useful thing with the Facebook is the messenger. You can use messenger with your computer or with your phone, if you download it from the store. When you have it in your phone, you have all Facebook messages in real time and can also answer them with your phone. Kinda new thing with this Messenger is, that you can also call to your friend even if you don't have his/hers phone number. It's useful but come to think about it, it might also be quite uncomfortable or even dangerous. 

I use Facebook daily and check the news feed and certain groups several times a day. News feed is being browsed almost every time when I'm bored or there's just nothing else to do. i don't know if it's common or just in my phone, but my phone keeps showing different things and people almost every time I browse through it. I think that I might not survive without Facebook nowadays, because it has been really useful so many times in my life. First coming to my mind is the time when our city's church was on fire, I first got the news from Facebook and as I heard, so did many other people and haven't maybe even know about the fire, if there wasn't Facebook to spread the news. Yeah, this wasn't a pleasant memory, but makes clear, how helpful it can be. And also, it makes it so easy to keep up with your friends even if they don't live in the same city as you.  I think this is all what I have to say about Facebook this time. Otherwise this post could stretch and stretch and no-one will read this all the way. 

Social media - my experiments and thoughts

Social media - nowadays so often heard and used word, but what it actually includes?

Many of us uses and benefits social media every day and maybe a several times in a day, and we don't even think about it like "hey, this really is that often heard social media". For example Pinterest, which many people knows and maybe uses daily, is one of the kind application, which you won't even think about being part of social media. Facebook and Instagram for one are primary applications, which everyone knows to belong in social media.

I have used social media for a very long time and also benefited it in various ways. I've had Facebook-account for almost ten years, from year 2008 or 2009 if I remember right. Nowadays you can benefit it more, than you could couple years ago. From Facebook you can find alike important and unnecessary information and in these days, there is its own second hand "store" for every single thing you can imagine. In these second hand "stores" shopping is very fast and easy, if everything goes right. But these also provide a great change for making money fast and easy, meaning that also bamboozling is very easy. Currently this bamboozling and stealing has been going up, but I don't know if it's about progressive amount of imposters or progressive awareness of people using these places to buy things.
Facebook can be used also for making different groups for different things, because it's very easy to create this special group for example for a game nights or sport events or like in our case, for a new studying group. You can also benefit these groups for getting and giving advices and in many many ways, which are impossible to list. Along with these groups this is also a good way to get more attention and advertisement for a sports club or different groups. You can create a group for your team or you can conveniently create this special site for your group. This site you can administer from your own user and you get to update events and games and different things about your team (or group) in real time. And this is how your followers and people interested about your team can keep up with the things, just using their phone or a computer. In this site you can update for example pictures and videos additionally with the verbal greetings. 

Instagram is one of these applications I've been using for many years now. Instagram is an easy way to share your feelings and doings for your friends. You just take a picture or a video and post it to Instagram with some hashtags concerning to your feelings or picture and wait for a likes. You can also spend your time easily with Instagram, because you can browse through it and find many interesting pictures and people from there. And of course your likes are being recorded in your own site, so you can find a nice outfit or a recipe later also.
I have an account in Twitter also, but I'm not using it very much. At the moment I only use it when there's some big sports event going on, for example ice hockey world championship games or basketball European championship games. At that time I comment contents of games and update my own feelings about the games and the future. But in a daily use I haven't been able to take this application, while I still sometimes keep track about what's going on in Twitter.

Pinterest is also one of these applications where I have an account. I found Pinterest about two years ago and it's really nice way to spend time and look for a new ideas. There is so wide selection about everything that you could spend hours and hours looking through it. From Pinterest you can find so many different, interesting and amazing recipes, diy-instructions, makeup tips and hair tutorials that I think you could spend a whole day without a break browsing it. There is also these handy Pin-boards, which you can name what ever you want and then gather ("Pin") everything you like to that board and keep everything where you can easily find them again. 

Youtube is also one of these applications I have been using for a long time and still using. I've used Youtube almost daily since it was released. It's an easy way to listen to music, at least until the track or album is on the Spotify. Before Spotify it was really handy way to listen to music without breaks or commercials. Along with the music you can also watch for example tv-series, which are not in television anymore, like this old Finnish comedy series "Kummeli". You can find many Kummeli sketches from Youtube, which was almost necessary when it wasn't in the television anymore. Also there is some movies you can find from Youtube and watch the full movie from there. Nowadays almost all series and movies are in Netflix and you can watch them from there, but for example some Finnish movies are only Youtube. I use Youtube sometimes for watching music videos or listening to some new or unknown artist, which isn't yet in Spotify. Daily I follow some vloggers or bloggers, who casually post also videos. Also I like to watch different makeup or hair tutorial videos, because you can find many useful tips and tricks from those.  From this topic it came to my mind that there is many bloggers that I've been actively following for a many years now. I can't tell what it is about bloggers, but it's nice and relaxing to read about someone else's life and incidents. Also you can find answers for your own problems or peer support or people, who has been going through same things you're going through at the moment. I've heard that for example blogs about losing your child have been very helpful for a people going through that. 

Could be, that I forgot something from these list (haha, I just figured that I totally forgot to mention the WhatsApp Messenger, which I'm using every day a lot!), but as you can notice, social media is one that is used a lot, even though you don't notice or think about it. 

The unforgettable experience with the social media is something I had to think about, but I think that I'll articulate the time when I started my university of applied science studies and there was this new, unknown group of people. We created first a Facebook-group for us and later also a WhatsApp-group. These two groups are the reasons, why our class is so close-knit and easy to be with. I think that these groups really helped to getting to know these new people and creating a new group, because it's of course easier to talk and chat when you're not face to face with new people. I think that changing our thoughts and familiarizing with the help of WhatsApp made it very easy and comfortable to meet these people also in the school. And we noticed that it was easy to be with these people also in the real world, because we kind of were already familiar with each other, because of the WhatsApp-group.

All in all, social media is very familiar tool for me and at this moment I can't name anything new what I'm waiting with it. However I'm quite sure, that during this class, I'm going to be more familiar with the social media and maybe getting acquainted with some new applications also.