This semester I undertook a class as part of my degree, Bachelor of Communication And Media, called ‘Understanding Research Practice’. A part of this subject was to conduct a research report over the course of the semester, including a research report, annotated bibliography, opinion piece and a reflection. Some of the work like my Pitch and Opinion Piece you can also find here on my blog. My topic, which had to relate to the students of BCM212 in some way or another, was Remote Work-Life Balance And The Effects On University Students. If you are unsure on what Work-Life Balance is I suggest this quick read of my Pitch.
At the start of this semester I was really unsure of what direction to go in, in fact I was behind in figuring out a topic on my own. This is where my classes really helped, with open discussions and live tweeting of ideas I was able to land on the idea of Work-Life Balance from my own feelings of finding things overwhelming, as well as from the help of my Tutor. However, my initial Pitch provides a few unethical aspects that once noticed lead me into a completely different direction. Instead of focusing on the feelings of students I reworked my project to highlight the impacts, such as traveling and time management.
This then led me into identifying risk factors that this research project might encounter, and discovering my own. For example, procrastination I knew was something possible for me and I was able to manage this with structuring a timetable.
I was originally stuck on if I wanted to interview students or put out a survey, but over time I curated a survey with some long answer responses to gain depth and insight as my research method. I shared it via my Twitter a few times over some weeks, but that wasn’t really gaining participants even with the #BCM212 hashtag. I found that the more I participated in other surveys and sharing my own in the replies asking if they wished to participate back was the real key to getting traction.
My opinion piece was not really a struggle to write, as after all the data and readings I found myself to be incredibly passionate about the outcome and even my own thoughts on the topic. In fact, besides this reflection I believe that was the easiest part of this whole project. My research report was incredibly overwhelming to write up though, just because of the sheer amount of data I had and the time I really put into structuring it as it is not really a format I am familiar with. That being said, by the time I had completed that element I was proud of it.
I have learnt many different things from this subject, like my own limits and working with them to create a finished product. I have learnt how to be more confident in engaging with students because I had to, and am really benefiting from that in other aspects of my University life. I have learnt how to research and collect data in an ethical way, even if I had a few setbacks before achieving that. In all, I am really thankful for the lessons learnt and the help received over the course of this project.
Work-Life Balance, what is it? Well the idea of Work-Life Balance is the basic understanding for the way you juggle separate aspects of life and though commonly referred to and used to describe the relationship between working and personal life, can be applied in other areas such as daily tasks and relaxing. In the case of this research project however, Work-Life Balance is the harmony between University work and personal life. With the concept of Work-Life Balance there, however, is working out whether or not you have a good one. Well, what is a good balance? Realistically that answer will be different and of large variety depending on the person who answers. There is this generic idea that “a good work-life balance means you have harmony between the different aspects of your life.” Healthdirect.gov.au. (2019).What does that look like for you? For most students and youth a good Work-Life Balance is having both a productive work life in terms of schooling but with a healthy balance of personal aspects which can range from a multitude of things, such as spending time with family, exercising, and employment as collected from my research.
This research project “REMOTE WORK-LIFE BALANCE & THE EFFECTS ON UNIVERSITY STUDENTS” was to explore the effects on students’ balances after the impacts of Covid-19, a global pandemic, complete remote learning, and to ask an overall question of whether or not this change has had a positive or negative impact. You can read my Pitch for this project here on my blog. In this I go into what the project will be about and my ideas, basic research and you can see the beginning stages of data collecting through embedded twitter polls.
To really collect data for my project I curated a survey for my fellow BCM212 students to take, if they wished, and answer some of my questions. I shared this on my Twitter with the hashtag #BCM212 a few times over the course of some weeks, as well as responding to other students undertaking this class with a link. The survey initially opens with a consent form to read, as well a place to leave an anonymous username as everything was indeed anonymous. I asked a range of things in the quick ten minutes it takes to participate, from multiple choice to unrequired long answer questions to gauge a better insight. Some of the things asked were: do you know what Work-Life Balance is? Did you have a Work-Life Balance in the past eg. highschool? Do you think for yourself personally that online learning has impacted your Work-Life Balance? For the longer questions I asked students, if they were comfortable, to describe how remote delivery has impacted their Work-Life Balance as well as if they found it to be beneficial.
I originally was inspired to focus on this topic by the question if online learning had been overwhelming or not for anyone else, because for myself it kind of had been. I had this set in mind idea that the data would point that way and overall negative after remembering the initial sadness that students had when the change happened. However, after inspecting the data collected, I was proved completely wrong.
Though 62.5% of BCM students had indeed found online learning to be overwhelming at times, a good 75% of them found that it had had a positive affect on their Work-Life Balance, as well as 75% noticing a positive impact on their work life performance. When asked the same question however about their personal life only 50% had found it to be a more positive impact than face-to-face, which isn’t exactly a negative at all really when you think of that being a half of students.
In response to the long answer questions, they too were overwhelmingly positive. A participant found online learning to have benefited the way they balance personal and University life. “Yes as the online method is more self-driven and most lessons are recorded so you are able to watch them whenever you want. Additionally, due to the fact they are online, you are able to attend a class wherever you want! This includes at home, at the beach, at a park, at the – your friends houses, at the library – absolutely anywhere!”
Another student said “yes, it is a lot more convenient to have online classes for example I am now able to work before having uni online which allows me to be flexible with my work and uni life balance.”
“I can do uni anywhere so it gives me more freedom to catch up with friends and do uni rather than dedicating a whole day to going to uni and doing uni work.”
“Yes it means I don’t have to travel. Makes working easier etc less stress.”
Though the responses were heavily leaning towards positive, there are still those who have found the experience to be more of a struggle or not positive at all. Here are some of their responses to the same question.
“In first year, I struggled with finding a balance between leisure and online uni because I always had so much spare time and was only working a few hours a week. It made it hard to stay motivated. This year I have improved in finding a balance as I have been able to adjust to what online uni is like and I have been able to figure out what methods work best for me.”
“No, it’s harder to balance as classes are not in person and there isn’t as much structure.”
“No, I become more anti-social and stressed. Constantly trying to catch up with lecture recordings, participation activities etc.”
I also provided a space in the survey to leave an example of how remote learning has impacted their Work-Life Balance if they wished too. Here are some of the responses that were shared.
“I’ve been given more time to do my job and more flexibility. More responsibility.”
“I am able to go to work on a wednesday, and attend class immediately after I finish. I would not have been able to do this last year, and would have either been rushing for time, or had to pick one or the either to attend, not both.”
“I feel that online learning has allowed me to find that balance between work and life as I feel that I have more time to do things for myself and spend time with my family. With my work life I was also able to work before uni as opposed to on campus. I had to take full days off as it would’ve not been worth it to work such short hours, as I had to consider long travel times to campus.”
“I am able to attend more shifts as I can just watch recorded tuts/lectures. I can also still see my friends and just do uni at their place or when they are at mine etc. no wasting time by travelling anywhere.”
As it is apparent by the responses and numbers from my survey, it is evident that more students than not are having a positive experience with remote delivery and are finding more of a balance and dare I say themselves without the added aspects of travel and overpacked full campus days. Even some students who are finding it more of a struggle left comments on how the lack of travel time has been such a benefit even if they are struggling to find an overall balance between their work and life areas.
In fact, after going through the data for a while, writing up a report and engaging with readings and other BCM students it swayed me. I was really focused on how overwhelmed I could be with online learning and the structure of some classes in first year. However, I have noticed such a shift within my own Work-Life balance this semester, as well as seeing the perspective of other students from their responses. I personally have managed my classes a lot better this time, found my groove within it and it has not impacted my personal life or friendships at all like on campus learning used too. This semester alone I have done more work and spent more time with my friends, even spending a few days away at times than what I managed to do in first year.
However, this leads into questioning because of its largely positive affect on students if University should stay online or even have the ability to choose what way you want it to be taught for yourself. I think this has to be looked at in the sense of how modern students learn today for possible restructuring to fit the times of a technologic and fast paced world.
The pool of students that participated in this research was small in comparison to the whole of University as it is just one class, but that doesn’t mean this degree has been the only one to be impacted in such a way. However, it is important to note that BCM is a media degree and it should be expected that students within that could have had a better time adjusting to those who are in degrees such as law. I think this within itself is an important question though, to really look at how degrees are taught to students and what way is beneficial to that degree rather than expecting each and each student to be the same.
Illustrations/Images created by myself – Taylor Housman
How do you balance your student life to your personal one? Do you have a balance at all?
I am interested in the way work-life balance has played a part in the global pandemic for student’s, shifting from campus based learning to constant engagement from the space of our home’s. How has that affected students ability to switch off and relax in their own space? Has it become overwhelming and difficult or has it been beneficial to further develop routine and organisation?
WHAT IS WORK-LIFE BALANCE?
Firstly, it’s important to know what work-life balance is referring to and how that corresponds to University student’s in the climate of a pandemic and remote learning.
My topic focuses on the environment that is within the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced everyone, not just student’s, inside for everything for over a year. Usually student’s would travel to campuses to engage with work, however this all shifted to remote delivery, forcing them to work within their personal space. My topic is to explore where the lines get blurry, the harmony of the aspects and drawing to question if this has been beneficial to student’s or not.
POLL’S
This topic was originally centred around the organisational impacts of Covid-19, which I instantly took to twitter to create poll’s for #bcm212 University student’s.
Through curating twitter polls and in class engagement I refined my idea further to if students were finding remote delivery overwhelming and what was helping them stay organised while working from their personal space. My twitter audience showed that there was in fact an interest in this, and not just that but my original poll resulted in a 50-50 result. This ultimately made me confirm my idea from wanting to dive deeper into this topic and the way student’s have been handling their work from home.
counterly, do you think being in your own space at home is benefiting you at all? or has it become more overwhelming? #bcm212
An article onan investigation into the side effects of working from home on work-life balance (Palumbo, R. 2020) investigates the ability of remote workers to manage the work-life integration brought on by disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. It identifies the potential issues that may occur when working from home as “the juxtaposition of private life and work-related duties is thought to generate stress and time allocation challenges.” This article does an intense dive into work-life balance and after a series of data collection it was found that remote working had side effects on work-life balance, which openly supports my topic. “The overlapping between work commitments and private affairs triggered by working at home involves drawbacks on the employees’ ability to manage the boundaries between work and life.”
Gregory R. Berry and Heidi Hughes explore work-life balance with constant switched on engagement from the student’s perspective in their article. They found that the barriers between leisure time and that of work/school commitments that were once distinctly defined are no longer. “Mobile communication technology which removes both the temporal and the physical boundary.” This is relevant to my topic because it highlights how being tuned into work can impact our personal life, especially when given the context of Covid-19.
Article’s have largely appeared ever since the pandemic lockdown that explored the health effects working from home. Some of the negative effects found ina rapid review of mental and physical health effects of working at home are “greater emotional exhaustion and cognitive stress.” On the other hand it was also found to “a positive effect on well-being…with less negative effect on well-being…” Similarly, on a more physical side Healthline, medically reviewed by Debra Sullivan, listed some effects that working from home and specifically from bed can have. “When we use our bed for other activities…we create an association with wakefulness.” Other effects include posture, hygiene, and energy. These articles are helpful for my topic in discussing both the negative and positive impacts that working from home may have for student’s.
I believe my topic is important to understand in a 2021 climate and to breach away from the outdated understanding of work equating to a seperate place and time when in truth that no longer exists. I am excited to conduct research into this topic in relevance to today’s student’s and to create insight on how those who are working remotely are handling the environment thrown at them.
Palumbo, R. (2020). Let me go to the office! An investigation into the side effects of working from home on work-life balance. Department of Management and Law, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy. P 3-14
Gregory R. Berry & Heidi Hughes (2020) Integrating Work–Life Balance with 24/7 Information and Communication Technologies: The Experience of Adult Students With Online Learning, American Journal of Distance Education. P 3
Oakman, J., Kinsman, N., Stuckey, R., Graham, M. and Weale, V. (2020). A rapid review of mental and physical health effects of working at home: how do we optimise health? BMC Public Health, 20(1). P 7
TaylorLani Artistry is an open Instagram page designed at showcasing the artworks which I create to the public. This page is also paired with a Redbubble store on the side where I sell prints, stickers and as of recently t-shirts of my art. The purpose behind this was to be able to share my art and designs with the world, to display something of myself for an audience that takes time, patience and is something I love.
Many Instagram art and illustrator accounts inspired the project, such as @erinjayee and @tasia.m.s who inspired the move of my art, which at the time was only shared on a personal account, to other platforms like Etsy and Redbubble. I am also extremely inspired by people and artists, which started me in the creation of portraits way before the existence of my Digital Artefact.
moodboards + starterpack
Early on my idea was solely TaylorLani Artistry on Redbubble as a place to present my pieces, often being portraits and little illustrations. However, I found this was not the best move as it takes a lot of time and patience to create a finished piece. I could spend hours working on something behind the scenes and you wouldn’t know because it was yet to be finished. I had little to no audience engagement this way as well.
The process of FEFO prompted the platform move to Instagram, where I instantly started to have audience interaction and engagement and was able to utilise my stories and reels to show my process. This made my DA a whole lot more enjoyable to keep up with and create for.
During this process I also opted to be more forward on my Twitter account. Before this project, I used to share my art and, well, anything I was creating on there just because I wanted to. I missed the way I used to see my art as something I made and not what I was defined by. By adding the use of twitter I had another way of interacting with people, some who might not even be a part of my Instagram viewers.
Though, with some feedback on my BCM114 blog I learned that the audience wasn’t feeling that personal touch from me as a creator. I have since taken this on board completely, along with the idea of targeting “fandom’ based audiences, which has allowed me to interact with my viewers in a whole new light and shared interests. I have even started by captioning some of “fandom” works with personal stories.
TaylorLani Artistry has gone through a lot of different waves since I started it as just a Redbubble store. I have met a lot of amazing people through engaging and interacting with my audience, and my DA as a whole has grown so much. However, this isn’t where that growth suddenly stops, I am eager to keep creating and sharing on a deeper personal level in the future and seeing where it branches off too next.
If you haven’t heard about my current DA bfore, you can take a look at my last posts about it here.
For a quick reminder however, TaylorLani Artistry is both my Instagram and Redbubble dedicated to showcasing artworks I create, where my main focus portraits.
As this is my last update for the semester, just a quick overview on how TaylorLani Artistry has evolved since the begining. I started this project to get my art out there somehow, and initionally only was going to be doing so over a Redbubble store. This evolved and then moved to Instagram, where I have had much better success and found suited myself a lot better. Where it currently stands is on the gorwing idea of offering comissions for portraist as I have done before outside of my DA.
Ever since shifting my platform I have relied more so on feedback and engament that I wasn’t having before for most of my DA’s process. I would say this technically has set my project back than others, but I like to remind myself that not everyone walks the same path, especially not in a creative endeavour.
I started to engage mainly through Instagram stories, asking questions, posting personaly updates, sketches and even sales that I have made off of Redbubble. However, I only really just started to also include my twitter as a source for feedback and different types of posting like polls for my audience outside of Instagram. This has been a great addition though, as I have always shared my art on twitter even long before this semester and have had an audience which has been supportive and postive.
I have also recieved feedback from making posts of on this blog, which have open my eyes to a few different ways I can continue to develope TaylorLani Artistry. For example, making my posts and artowkr more personal and sharing more than just the final product.
A way I can do this is by drawing a focus on why the people I make artworks of inspire me, as that is the initial process of why I mke portraits to begin with. Along with even more reels and stories of the drawing process.
From here on out I do continue to keep creating content, as I have and probably always will be making art, continuing to make it a little different each time. I think the right way to go is to make my account more personal and connected to me, allowing my audience to engage with myself through my artwork.
In the short time it has been since I posted my Pitch for my DA, a Redbubble store where I can showcase and sell my digitial artworks, TaylorLani Artistry has under gone major shifts and changes that ultimately have put me in a far better place now than before.
When I first launched my store, I was excited to actually have something out there of my work, and while it technically worked and I made sales from it, I found that it was difficult to maintain.
This wasn’t beause I fell out with the idea or anything, in fact I still have my store open and still update it. However, I am kind of a perfectionist and though to someone who isn’t an artist it may not look it but I can spend days up to weeks on one piece and because of this I found that I wasn’t really being consistant with updating my desgins. Who wants to sell an unfinished artwork right?
Thus, after my first prototype I shifted my idea to focus on another area that not only works better for me but is more convenient to my scheduale and the duration of making.
I was already using an Instagram account for my DA as more of a promotion aspect for my store, but after a lot of consideration I have decided to focus more so on an Instagram page of my art rather than my main ploy being Redbubble.
This has been working incredibly well ever since making the decision. Now I don’t have to wait to share just a finished product with my auidence, but rather I can include all different aspects of the making process. From sharing my sketches and utilising the IGTV option to share speed-paintings.
This has also allowed me to see my Insights in a more exact way then just my sales, and I have come to notice that my auidence interacts higher with my portraits rather than my other artworks. This has also enabled me to use Polls, which I have since been enaging with my viewers to vote on which portriat they would like to see.
Ever since moving my ideas to Instagram I have also had the opportunity to recieve feedback and shares in a more orgonised and simplistic way from messages, comments and stories.
In spite of the platform shift, I believe my DA still targets the same audience that I had originally been working with becuase my content has changed within itself, morever that now I am able to showcase more than the final product but all the stages that go into creating an artwork. This has enabled me to be more active online and enage with my account.
Right Now?
While my DA has had a pretty decently sized shift, that hasn’t stopped the process of my ideas and concepts changing and growing over time. I have just started to interact with my audience to gain feedback in the possiblity of opening up commisioned portraits and whether or not anyone would be interested in seeing such development with TaylorLani Artistry. As for further one however, all I can say it that my DA is always growing and evoloving into something bigger and better.
If you’ve been following for a bit you would know that I started Taylor-Lani Artistry a month or so ago for University. Taylor-Lani Artistry is where I post on Instagram and sell on Redbubble my artworks that I make in my free time.
I have a pitch for this project here, where I showcase feedback on the idea I had for my DA and different aspects such as my logo changes.
I love art and creating in many different forms, however, this project hasn’t been running perfectly or been without setbacks. I want to preface this with that while these things have been occurring, it doesn’t mean I love my process or the project any less.
I digitally paint a lot of portraits of people who inspire me or I am just inspired to paint based on their style, and so with this I make portraits of ‘artists’ I like such as Awsten Knight and Colson Baker (MGK). This produced a setback with my store with ‘copyright’ and ‘mature content’ issues, resulting in one of my favorite pieces being taken down. However, after observing this problem, it has taught me to be extra cautious and respectful of my own work without changing what I’m doing and have had no issues as such since.
Another occurrence with Taylor-Lani Artistry is the fact that I am not inspired to create all the time, and as many others do, struggle with artist block. To me my project feels like it’s been pushed back and not where it should be, however to others they don’t even notice it. I wanted to use my struggles to my advantage though, and on my Instagram stories engaged and consulted with my audience how they overcome art block and to share their strategies if they wanted. This has made me feel more connected to my audience even if I haven’t been continuously creating.
I feel as if my short break has also made me more interested in my project as of right now. The artworks I have been working on since have had so much heart and soul in them and I have come to be really proud of them. I think this comes from my works not being forced and fabricated for the sake of putting out content.
I feel as if I have only just stepped out of the defining stage, with supporters now receiving items of which they have brought off my store, which has me very excited to see where this continues to go in the future.
Social media has become a part of our daily routines, a continuous part and factor of our lives since the height of platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Nearly every individual has a use for some type of social media, and because of this, near every individual has their own way of usage for it as well. The use of social platforms is such a broad spectrum, pages can be used to sell products, profiles to display your own life and interests.
What do you use social media for?
I grew up in that wonderful age of social media discovery, where sites and platforms were just coming of age and popularity. Because of this, I have been online and engaged since I was young, probably when I was too young. Over time my use for socials has definitely changed, especially with the “death” of places like Tumblr and the rise of Tik Tok. However, places like Tumblr are where I got my start in media.
Hillman, S., Procyk, J. and Neustaedter, C. (n.d.). Tumblr fandoms, community & culture. Proceedings of the companion publication of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing – CSCW Companion ’14. [online] Available at: https://www.academia.edu/5174465/Tumblr_Fandoms_Community_and_Culture
The next question to be asked is whether or not we think of this type of journalism to be quality or harmful? If falsehoods can be easily filtered through those in careers of “verifying facts”, what is to say that it isn’t also from your next door neighbors Facebook page?
Really, is it doing more harm than good?
Personally, I believe it intends to be more beneficial more so than not.
Truely, I think that Citizen Journalism has a high intent of wanting to help and inform, more so than traditional news programs which have far richer guidelines to follow than someone sharing a post or uploading a photo. Yet, it goes without saying that of course it isn’t always the most truthful or helpful, but rarely anything is.
According to John Storey’s book “Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction” (2015), he defines it to be “simply culture that is widely favoured or well liked by many people.” The new age era of technology and media allows everyone to be a constant consumer of popular culture, creating large amounts of engagement.
What popular culture do you consume?
Personally for me, I find myself exposed to a large part of media intake and identity which is filtered through the culture, ‘a general process of intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development’, of both punk and contemporary punk scenes. These scenes are largely affiliated with ideologies, ‘a systematic body of ideas articulated by a particular group of people’, such as the challenging of societal norms and issues through the exploration of music. “A vital role in the punk rock movement and gained legitimacy through its use of coactive and extremely confrontational tactics. These extreme tactics ultimately gained attention to bring about social change and to resist the status quo.”
The idea of Cultural Proximity and Ideology can be seen through my personal example of my own gravitation towards media that reflects and shares the same values and culture as myself. It is the reason as to why I consume as much punk popular culture as I tend to. Punk and it’s now existing culture, scenes and all it’s subcultures, is universal and has evolved drastically through the years as the social climate of the world itself has changed.
Tangled In The Great Escape 