Monday: Honestly, I try to avoid reading as much as possible. I won’t even open a book unless it’s for homework or some type of requirement for one of my classes. Today I read for about one and a half hours though because I had to for my Chemistry class. I usually never watch television either unless it’s a certain show I’m obsessed about (ex. Glee). However, even then I still tend to miss episodes due to the fact that I’m not a big television type of person. Today I didn’t watch television at all. Out of all types of media, the internet is by far going to get the most attention and hours from me. I’m an active blogger, youtube user, facebooker, tweeter, etc. so I’m constantly checking these different websites for updates. I’ve probably spent around four hours on the internet today. I dedicated an hour on the internet for school related things (camino, looking up definitions, reading online texts) and the other three hours for my own source of entertainment. I’m probably on facebook most of the time though.
Tuesday: I actually had to do some major homework today so I spent around two to three hours reading my psychology textbook, and “the Misunderstood Jew” for my religion class. No television time once again. I did go on facebook today for about an hour just looking at what my friends have been up to. I also spend an hour or so on my tumblr account. I really like tumblr because people post some really interesting pictures on the web and I’m a very visual person so I appreciate photos of just random things.
Wednesday: I watched like 15 minutes of the news on television today because my roommates were watching it and I just so happened to walk in on them. I didn’t do much reading today because I was feeling kind of lazy, but I did skim through my Japanese book for about a half an hour. I also spent around 45 minutes looking through a Cosmopolitan magazine. I love reading the articles about people’s personal experiences with relationships! It kind of makes me want to become a marriage counselor. As for the internet, I spent the usual about of time on facebook (an hour and a half) and I spent like half an hour going through my emails. I also watched a couple of youtube videos for about half on hour.
Thursday: Today is usually my slow day. I try to catch up on some extra sleep or start on my homework for the following week. I probably spent around two hours reading and looking through textbooks. I also online shopped (karmaloop.com, forever21.com, sephora.com) for about an hour and purchased a new jacket and some new makeup! I spent around half an hour on facebook and half an hour trying to update my blog.
Friday: I definitely don’t do any reading on Fridays! I mean, I’m a college student. What can you really expect from me? I’m usually not even home on Fridays to go on the internet. I spent around half an hour on facebook and 20 minutes replying to emails and blog posts. Fridays aren’t usually my productive days.
Saturday: Saturdays are typically the same as Fridays. The only time I really use the internet is to update my facebook or reply to emails. I typically only spend an hour on the internet on weekends because I’m usually never home. However, I do update my twitter through my Iphone if that counts for anything.
I feel like my media diet reflects the fact that I don’t really do much that doesn’t require the internet unless I absolutely have to. For instance, the only books I read are textbooks. All the other reading I’ll do comes from online such as reading comments, emails, news articles (sometimes), blog posts, etc. I don’t think my media diet is different from a lot of other teenagers my age. Facebook has pretty much taken over the world; I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have an account. All of my other friends spend just as much time on facebook as I do so I don’t really feel like I stand out. I do however feel guilty about the amount of time I dedicate to facebook because I know I could be doing other things like working out, doing some extra studying, hanging out with friends, etc. instead of constantly checking for new updates. Our society today depends heavily on the internet whether it be for entertainment, educational purposes, or simply just to keep in contact with friends and relatives. My media diet simply just reflects the fact that America has become dependent on the internet. If I had the choice, I definitely wouldn’t spend as much time on facebook and other seemingly useless sites. However, I feel like it’s somewhat out of my control at this point because my fingers are on auto pilot right when I touch a keyboard. I’d love it if I could stay focused on strictly school work when I’m using the computer and not just automatically going straight to facebook. It doesn’t really help that my social location is a college campus though. I see people on facebook/myspace/twitter all the time and it kind of just makes me want to waste my time on those sites as well. I feel like facebook is predominantly targeted towards college students and so my social location does have a lot to do with the types of websites I’m on, the types of books I read, and how many hours I spend on each.
I can relate to what you are saying in this blog as I feel I use facebook way more than I should. I think you bring up a really good point that the only type of old fashioned reading (i.e. books) that students do nowadays is textbooks. Everything else is online (articles, journal entries, etc.). Although online articles are more convenient and easier to access than books, there is a disadvantage to using online sources for studying. For example, in my english class fall quarter, we read an article that discussed how looking at a screen (mostly via the internet) is linked to depression. This makes me wonder if internet usage (especially in this increasingly technological driven society) will affect people in ways that they did not expect (such as suffering from depression).
ReplyDeleteNice analysis of your media activity. I find it interesting how little television you watch. When I'm doing my homework or just can't think of anything better to do, I just automatically turn on the TV and leave it on the first channel with anything remotely interesting on. Also I can relate to how most of the actual reading we as students do is through textbooks. It seems like with all the reading we are assigned, picking up a book to read for fun just isn't feasible during the school year. It's a shame because when we finally finish our course readings we just want to do something passive like check facebook or watch TV instead of doing something intellectual.
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