lpahomov

By: Sara Nesbitt 

Staff Writer 

If it is talk to family, complain about your ex-best friend, or stalk people by looking at their pictures– social media is an unavoidable part of our lives.

Or is it?

Facebook has over 1 billion users, Twitter has 500 million–it might seem like everybody is on these networks. Some users might not be as excited about social media as you think, and some aren’t even using it at all.

Senior Heather Campbell deals with this because she would have nothing to do with Facebook if it wasn’t for her friends and family overseas. She lived in New Zealand last year, and talks to her friends there through Facebook– but she can’t avoid getting distracted.

“I spend a lot of time on it just doing nothing.” Campbell says, then added, “I also hate how everything is so public.”

Junior Isabela Aznar has a similar situation. “Social media is important to my life because it’s how I talk to my family in Mexico a majority of the time,” she said.

Aznar also had her objections. “I don’t like how self-centered social media can make people, and how it has made people less social and less active.”

Some people take these problems so seriously that they deactivate their account — or never sign up in the first place.

Junior Dalena Bui had recently deleted her Facebook account saying, “I only go on there to waste time.”

However, for all the negativity about social media, some people are using it in productive ways.

Andy Carvin, a senior project manager for online communities working for NPR, is a big fan of Twitter, and other social media networks. Carvin uses social media to decipher things all over the world posting pictures, videos, or status’ on Twitter asking to public for their input. He has over 85,000 followers, and they all help him with his job by contributing their thoughts, ideas and actions.

Without social media, his job would not exist, and all of his important discoveries wouldn’t exist either.

So you use Facebook to talk to family, Twitter to complain about your ex-best friend, or try to avoid  both altogether– there’s no way to ….

By Leah Kelly

Staff Writer

Coming to you live from Philadelphia PA, it’s SLA’s annual EduCon!

As a fundraiser for the school, EduCon makes keeping operating costs low a priority. What makes the conference possible is the initiative and elbow grease of the student volunteers.

The whole crew is managed by Student Co-Chairs Senior Ryan Harris and Junior Tsion Habtamu. Approximately 175 students are volunteering this year as part of a food crew, tour guide group, coat checker, cashier and much more.

Sophomore Nikki Adeli has a very important job this year at Educon–she is replacing Jeff Kessler as EduConcierge.

“As head concierge, I will be overseeing the EduCon Conference Services in addition to helping all guests at the event with whatever they may need,” Adeli said. No word on whether the cart from last year will be make a return appearance.

Sophomore Dylan Long also has a job that is going to make guests satisfied with their time at EduCon 2.5.

“I am director of travel services,” Dylan says. “Basically I have to tell people how to get around the city because people from all over the continent are coming and they have no idea how to get around. I have to know all the best restaurants to send them to with different budgets and the entire septa routes and schedule.”

Other student positions include Coffee Czar Jenn Wright and many student “docents” who are personal hosts to VIPs who attend the conference. Docents are hand-picked because they have similar interests as the attendees.

Now in its sixth year, operations are running smoothly overall — although there’s a few hiccups each time.

Two years ago, the student volunteers had to deal with a snowstorm which cancelled school–they showed anyway to have an “unschool” day with people who could make it.

That was also the year that SLA did coat check for the first time, and the system got messy.

“Everybody brought a peacoat,” Senior Sam Lovett-Perkins said, who helped manage the room when he was a sophomore. “There was a pile of peacoats… everyone got their coat in the end, though.”

This year, a challenge is getting the outlets to work. The third floor ballroom has intermittent electricity, which makes providing hot beverages difficult.

“EduCon attendees get really, really hyped up about their coffee,” said Wright. “When the electricity is unreliable, that can make for a disastrous situation.”

The conference is once again sold out, and SLA is expecting close to 600 attendees over the course of the weekend. As with all school events, the volunteers look forward to making this year’s EduCon a success.