March 26, 2014
Maddie Scullion and Eva Dougherty
Staff Writers
Do you like to tweet or post? Like or favorite? The votes are in and the students of Jamesville- DeWitt High School have chosen what sites they use most. Twitter and Instagram are fighting it out for the top of the list.
Some choose Instagram to escape Twitter, like freshman Jamie Rieger, who likes Instagram the best because “Twitter involves too much reading. I feel overwhelmed,” said Rieger. Senior Allison Semmel is a fan of Instagram over Twitter because she likes being able to post more than just words. Senior Sarah Phillips and Sophomore Connor Evans agree that Instagram’s content is more interesting than Twitter’s. Senior Owen Williams goes even farther, saying that everything that is posted on Twitter is useless. Junior Paddy Hagan agrees with Williams and says “twitter is stupid.” Freshman Thomas Edson says he likes Instagram since there is no character limit on your comments. It seems that Instagram is used by students to share what’s going on in their life and not as much for interaction as Twitter is. “I like how you can see what’s going on with other people,” said Evans. Junior Gracie Catanzarite likes Instagram because she said it’s “good for stalking One Direction!” Catanzarite says she visits Instagram at least 15 times a day.
However, J-D students use Twitter as “a good source to look at your friends and famous people’s thoughts,” said freshman Aryana Nazem There are defenders of Twitter, like junior Tal Frieden, who prefers it to Instagram because he says he doesn’t like looking at people’s “annoying Instagram pictures of food.” Junior Josh Gutmaker and sophomore Kerry Simizon like Twitter because they think it’s a shorter process than Instagram. When posting on Twitter, you only have to click an icon and type your tweet. On Instagram, you have to click the icon, find your picture, edit it, add a comment and post. “Twitter is short and sweet,” said Gutmaker. Freshman Ben Picone agrees, saying Twitter is the best. “Instagram can get kind of annoying to me,” said Picone. Sophomores Alyssa Phillips and Cassie Galusha like Twitter because it involves more interaction, and you are able to talk more. Freshman Alex Frank says that she likes expressing her thoughts through Twitter. However, “I fail at Twitter. I only get three favorites on each Tweet!” said Frank.
Though J-D students mainly use Twitter and Instagram, they do like to use other apps such as the new app Vine. “ Vine is the most entertaining thing ever,” said freshman Julia Kelner. Rieger likes Vine because she thinks the six second videos are very funny when a lot of time and effort is put into them. Pinterest is another app used by students. “I love Pinterest because I like looking at the pictures of food and hairstyles,” said Nazem. Freshman Hannah Butler likes Pinterest to look at recipes and DIY’s. Tumblr is a blogging service used by a few students. Freshman Jenna Fagut uses Tumblr as opposed to Instagram mainly to reblog pictures because it represents her better. Snapchat is an app that is on most student’s phones here at J-DHS. Frank likes Snapchat because “you can have ugly Snapchat contests with your friends.”
The question is….Are these sites useful? “I think it’s more of a time waster than anything,” said Frieden. Alyssa Phillips says Twitter can be used to promote ideas, but most high school students don’t use it that way. Most teenagers use Twitter to tweet about their opinions and to see what others are tweeting about. Rieger thinks Instagram is more entertaining than anything. Sarah Phillips thinks that Instagram could be useful for people who are into photography. Williams says that Instagram is not that useful, other than a cure for boredom.