https://strockb.sites.carleton.edu/about-me-2
I thought working on my own website was a super fun challenge, and I’ve never done anything like it before. I have never held control over my own site and honestly thought it was something I would never get to do. It gave me a better respect for the super complicated sites that exist on the internet.
Starting out with WordPress, I had to figure out how to even delete all of the content that was pre-loaded onto the site. I had a hard time navigating the interface of WordPress, which created a lot of challenge for me as I worked through this lab. Following this, I activated the spam protector in order to protect the site. Before this, I had no idea that a spam protector was a thing. After that, I played around with a bunch of themes and the templates that went with them in order to find the one I liked the most, and the templates lined up with what I wanted to do. In the future, I could see myself using this to help promote activism or to spread a message in my professional life. I think that the creative paths that you can take through a website are super cool, and it is a great creative outlet. It is absolute control of what you convey and how you get the message across.
I think that when it comes to using a website as opposed to social media and similar services, there are a lot of benefits as well as drawbacks. I think that a negative is it takes much more effort and work to start a website. You have to put the time into creating it, as well as you have to monitor it consistently and keep working on it to keep it going. This doesn’t really apply to social media, where it’s just a simple sign-up, and you can start sharing media right away. Another drawback to your own site is a lack of interaction. Social media has a large base of users who can see your post right away. However, by using these sites, you are placed in an algorithm where the company that runs the site selects what gets shown to people, allowing them to control the narrative. This is the biggest upside to creating your own site. You can completely control what you say and how it’s seen. I think that’s incredibly powerful and a great motivator for using my own website in the future.
WOW!! Your site is so stunning! I totally agree that having control over your own site is really nice! I think the time dedicated goes to both social media and a site, and while you don’t need to build the UI from scratch, I think having a good page in any respect requires time and effort- just different versions.