I feel I must make a confession as someone who is just beginning to do research on social media. I am a bit of a reluctant social media contributor. I’m more of a hardcore lurker. I post infrequently to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr (although I’m trying to do better). I believe my reluctance to update/post/tweet comes more from a personal hesitancy than a professional/research hesitancy  Being a naturally private, shy, and quiet person, I’ve never felt the need to publicly announce what I’m doing/thinking/eating/feeling. I hope there are others out there like me who cringe a bit after posting on a social network site. Will it be liked or retweeted?? Part of these may come from working in a public library in a conservative community, part of it is just my introverted self. But I realize that there are many people who do not share this tendency and who feel quite comfortable updating their status with anything and everything. I’d like to find a happy medium between these two extremes: rarely posting and posting every five minutes.

I am currently working on a literature review of cyberbullying, focusing on how public librarians can be a source of support for victims.As a beginning social media researcher I need to make myself known with the community of social media researchers. From what I’ve been told the best way to do this is to put myself out there through blog posts, Tweets, Tumblr posts, etc. This is part of my attempt with this blog. By posting about once a week to this blog, I becoming more comfortable as a producer of online content. I’ll get there. Baby steps.You may ask yourself: Why is does she want to research social media if she doesn’t seem to be actively engaged with it? Since I started using social network sites back in the early days of MySpace and LiveJournal, I’ve been fascinated with how people use these sites. My interest in the effect social media has had on the way we all, especially young adults, communicate and interact on a daily basis has led to my summer research collaboration with Dr. Mardis. I am currently working on a literature review of cyberbullying, focusing on how public librarians can be a source of support for victims. Social media appears to be a research area that is wide open for investigation.

As a beginning social media researcher I need to make myself known with the community of social media researchers. From what I’ve been told the best way to do this is to put myself out there through blog posts, Tweets, Tumblr posts, etc. This is part of my attempt with this blog. By posting about once a week to this blog, I becoming more comfortable as a producer of online content. I’ll get there. Baby steps.