Lisa Nakamura writes about social media labor and the unplanned labor associated with the platforms. Throughout the reading, she gives examples of women who perform rather important tasks, but are not fairly compensated for it. Women are exploited because males unfortunately feel as though they can get away with paying them less than males in return for the same quality work.
Moving to a more prominent theme, social media creates labor which is usually overlooked as just regular activity. This reading really brought awareness to the economic outlook of social media; while also tying sexism into the argument. Knowing that most social media posts/tweets are counted as labor raises a new way to look at content creators that I never imagined before.
From this reading, I became more aware of almost all types of labor associated with social media. Many times, I do not think of scrolling through different hashtags, for example, as labor. But from each hashtag or movement, someone has to be at the forefront—as the leader of the intended movement. I use Twitter most of the time out of any social media platform for mainly sports news and updates. I follow many different reporters who Tweet breaking news immediately. For me, I never really understood the commitment it takes to always breaking the news. Your phone must always be close to you. From an economic viewpoint, oftentimes the opportunity cost of that is sacrificing your free time for your job. I am certain most of the reporters want free time, but they would be sacrificing their job of breaking the news.
Sam's Blog 