My Relationship with Media

My relationship with media has evolved quite a bit over the years. My preschool did not allow media-related clothing, so as a little kid I came to understand media as a vaguely negative term for movies and TV. Flash forward to today, and one of my biggest challenges in writing this blog is the media that surrounds me, so I supposed my attitudes have changed a little. Although the kinds of media I learned to see as bad do not play a much bigger role in my life than they did back then--with homework and the end of Downton Abbey I rarely watch TV--the internet has become a major part of my existence. I almost instinctively grab my phone and check Instagram and Snapchat when I do not have anything else to do, as well as sometimes when I do have other obligations. Checking ESPN and a variety of track and field related media outlets has also become a routine, even when nothing I care much about is going on. The internet is not my only source of media, however; for years, part of my morning routine has been reading the Sacramento Bee sports pages, and I usually take a look at the opinion articles in the New York Times at some point during the weekend.

Like many people in today's world, I am unsure what to make of the amount of time I spend consuming media. I certainly appreciate the amount of information that the internet makes easily available; in I like to know things, and it seems like expanding one's general knowledge is not a bad thing. On the other hand, the constant stream of information the internet is all too happy to deliver inevitably ends up being too much to process, and I wonder how much I am taking in, and whether or not I can muster a thought-out opinion on what I do take in. As for Instagram and Snapchat, I like being able to communicate with my friends when I am not in the same place as them and I do not think it cuts down on my face to face social interactions, but most of the time I find that social media is not very social. Of the time I spend using it, more is just looking at pictures people took, filtered, and posted than actually communicating with people, and I have a sneaky feeling that looking at those pictures is not really improving the quality of my life.

With the endless stream of media I encounter every day, it sometimes seems futile to bother thinking about it. However, things always come back to remind me that media is not a necessary part of life, nor is it impossible to diminish or amplify its effect. Last summer, I went to Yosemite with my family, stayed in a cabin with no wifi or cell service, and although I did not have access to as much information as I would have liked, I do not think I was less happy for it. Going back even further, my media-free preschool was not a bad experience. Hopefully through these blogs I can make some progress in figuring out what the effect of the media I consume is, and how I really feel about it all.