On-Campus Housing:
On August 25th, Cal Poly’s own President Armstrong informed the continuing students and the new freshmen that all who choose to live on campus for the fall of 2020 would be in single room occupancies.
This meant only 5,510 students would be residing on campus, according to the plan that came along with Armstrong’s announcement.
Simultaneously, only 15 percent of all classes are still being held on campus.
The virtual-based hybrid learning system and single room occupancy are in place to help mitigate the spread of coronavirus in the greater campus and San Luis Obispo community; however, it comes with concern for student mental health.
On the Cal Poly SLO Mustang Parents Facebook Page, the conversation about isolation began in the Week Of Welcome.
Two comments on the first post sharing information on WoW as an entirely virtual event read:
“This virtual experience isn’t cutting it. Not close. They feel even more isolated as they are not mixing with others.”
“I’m so worried that my son will just feel isolated and not be able to connect with his peers. Not seeing much point in being on campus anymore.”
These parent concerns began my interest in the Freshmen coping with living on their own amid a pandemic.
While Mustang news did answer on how students are coping with mental health in articles like the following:
- Here’s What We Know About Fall 2020
- Living Alone in the Dorms How Freshmen Are Coping
- Over 100 Students Rated Their Mental Health At Zero In an Instagram Poll. Here Are Some Of Their Responses
I still had questions about how these students were meeting others when socialization isn’t allowed outside of people in their immediate household.
And the answer came to me through my own TikTok For You Page.
TikTok:
Tik Tok is a short video-based content-creation application that has over 1.5 billion downloads according to BusinessofApps.
It is modeled after earlier social media, the conventional tools seen in both Instagram and Twitter — like hashtags — are a driving factor in the content organization. The user-generated content is not limited to who you follow. TikTok has a content curation algorithm based on search engine history and other app engagement to create infinite video recommendations without needing to follow a single account.
TikTok’s platform allows for quick and effortless content consumption and banks on constant stimulation.
What TikTok Has to Do With Cal Poly:
Scrolling on my own For You Page, I saw the “we should be friends trend” alongside Cal Poly specific content.
This use of the App emerged around the beginning of the fall quarter, as many students globally were returning to college classes virtually. But, I had yet to see any of my Cal Poly peers partake in the trend. So, I went to the hashtags– and they did not disappoint. The #calpoly had 18.6 million views and #calpolyslo had 9.4 million. Within these hashtags Cal Poly students were asking others if they were in San Luis Obispo and wanted to be friends on their video captions.
These hashtags lead me to Cal Poly specific content creators.
I reached out to users:
- @ceoofyourmom who had a leading hashtag video under #calpoly.
- @fabfifi who captioned a video “if you go to #calpoly pls be my friend we can get smoothies together”.
- @danielviz149 who regularly posts PCV content and a day in the life of a Cal Poly student Vlogs.
- @montanawilliamson2 who posted a cal poly content video captioned “let’s be friends #calpolyslo #college #dorm #friends #lonely”.
- @ellaohood who captioned a post “If you go to cp slo let’s be friends” alongside hashtags #calpoly and #calpolyslo.
I reached out through the comment sections of their videos. Because comments can get buried, I wasn’t sure how many of them were going to reply.
Three replied: @danielviz14; @montanawilliamson2; and @ceoofyourmom.
@danielviz14 said, “I’m down.”
@montanawilliamson2 replied, “Um sure hahah!”
@ceoofyourmom responded, “sure lol.”
I had hoped to move on with @danielviz14 and @montanawilliamson2; because it would mean content from more than just freshmen about using TikTok to meet others. However, his replies stopped soon after the first week of correspondence.
This left freshmen @montanawilliamson2 and @ceoofyourmom to move on to the interview stage of my story.
The interviews went smoothly. And on top of that, the interviewees were hilarious. Which is something I should have assumed after seeing their TikToks.
After the story:
Not much has changed since the interviews. @montanawilliamson2 and @ceoofyourmomhave have both continued with their Cal Poly focused TikTok content. I am still an avid user of TikTok, and my partner Giselle Fernandez still has not downloaded the application.
She does not find downloading the app anywhere in the near future. “I don’t wanna be addicted to my phone. Social media can take up so much of my time, so I delete the apps pretty often. But, I do like going on the website on my laptop when I am bored,” said Fernandez.