So after around 12 hours of Googling, debugging, coding..I found out that the reason my SparkFun ESP8266 Shield never posted any data to Phant was because it's stuck on the guest page. It gets and IP just fine, so I can get on it's server and see the output, but nothing much else beyond that. This is at a university: so to logon we need our username and password, however from the codes that I've been reading (like https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/esp8266-wifi-shield-hookup-guide#resources--going-further) there are lines to assign mySSID and myPSK, but none for a username.
I did try to create one, and then adding it in to
esp8266.connect(mySSID, myUser, myPSK)
Arduino: 1.8.2 (Windows 10), Board: "Arduino/Genuino Uno"
C:\Users\USER\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_modified_sketch_7414\ESP8266_Phant_Library.ino: In function 'void setup()':
ESP8266_Phant_Library:85: error: no matching function for call to 'ESP8266Class::connect(const char [10], const char [5], const char [13])'
if (esp8266.connect(mySSID, myUser, myPSK) < 0)
^
exit status 1
no matching function for call to 'ESP8266Class::connect(const char [10], const char [5], const char [13])'
This report would have more information with
"Show verbose output during compilation"
option enabled in File -> Preferences.
Hopefully someone could help out?