Hi, my name is Abel, I am 20 years old and currently living in the United States. I moved here 5 years ago from Ethiopia.It has been both challenging and excited. coming from a country that have different culture and background. I had to learn more about the people and communicate with them and I was having a bit issues with that since I moved here around the covid times and people were keeping their distance from each other and we had to wear masks. Even though I am not fluent, I didnt have any trouble with the language barrier. After a few months I started to learn on how to communicate and express myself. 
Interesting things about me is that since I cam from a other country I speak two language, English and Amharic which is a language mostly spoken in Ethiopia, growing up, I liked playing soccer and playing video games with my friends, those two hobbies has a big role in the person that I am today, playing soccer has taught me to be disciplined, consisted and teamwork and the video games has taught me to think outside the box, creativity, problem solving skills, thinking strategically and also it helped me to improve my English skills. those two activities have had an influence on how I see competition and helped to me realize that I can do whatever I want as long as I am dedicated and believed in myself.
After I moved to the US, I started to notice that social media is not only a place to exchange informations, it has become a thing that shapes people’s confidence, social expectations and their identity. I noticed that social media has the power over people to change themselves so they can feel accepted by others and chase validation instead of having their own opinions about things. Back when I was in Ethiopia, we didn’t use social media, so we were free and had a different opinions or be different from others and still be okay with it but here, I see how the celebrities, musics, or advertisements sends a message about success, appearance, and lifestyles. I noticed how a short clip video of someone can build up and form an opinion and instead of being drawn to it , I started to analyze the social media and see what type of things gets viral or popular what things that don’t. and that curiosity made me to more interest to learn how media is powerful tool other than just being used for entertainment purposes.
My-media related interest are based on the social media culture, social media influence, advertising, and branding. I am very interested in how the media is powerful enough to shape peoples identity, influence their confidence and trends within our generation since we all are on our phone for the most of the time and we tend to use similar platforms like instagram and TikTok.by the end of this semester, I hope I will have better understand on how is the social media is being used and how these messages are created and distributed and how the messages can influence people self-esteem. some questions that I have are
- how does the social media can influence confidence and self image?
- What way does the media sets success standards?
- how the media has changed the way people communicate?
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