In recording my media consumption for the last week, I am more aware than ever just how dependent I am on technology for everything in my life. The most apparent media source that I use is my cell phone. I use it so much everyday that I don’t even realize it. One day this week, my phone was broken. I had to take it into the store to get it fixed and after checking it out they said they would do a software update. They told me it would take about a half hour so I could just wait. I sat down and immediately went to pull out my phone to text someone, or check my facebook, or surf the internet. When I realized that I did not have my phone to occupy me for the small amount of time, I freaked out a little bit. I am so reliant on my phone that without it I could hardly function. After a half hour, they told me that it would actually take about an hour and a half more, so I could leave my phone and come back in a bit. I drove home, feeling naked and when I got home, I immediately turned on the tv and opened up my computer. I had only been without my phone for only a few minutes and I felt so disconnected from the world. This instance really made me take a look at how dependent I am on media. I am on the my computer constantly. The internet is always there and ready for me to look up any little thing that I need to. This past fall, I was studying abroad on Semester at Sea. For the 108 days, we were allotted 120 internet minutes each. Besides our assigned email, that is all the internet we got. That alone was a very different experience for me. We also didn’t have tv and most people did not have working cell phones. Luckily, I had an international plan, so my phone worked in the middle of the ocean, but in using the internet on my phone as my primary internet source, I realized how much I rely on the internet and technological media. I am always consuming media, whether it be googling something I want to know more about or reading the latest celebrity gossip on perezhilton.com. And as much as I depend on media, I know so many people my age who rely even more on media than me. I think that may be one of the things that shocks me most, with all the media I consume, so many others consume even more than me. I think that being aware of my media intake is the first step. I do not think that more or less is better or worse, but I do think that in being aware of my media usage, I can more efficiently consume my media in my day to day life. This activity alone has been a great eye opener and Ihope to keep in mind my media consumption in the future.
I think it's kind of funny how everyone feels naked without technology yet at the same time we feel sort of bad for being so intimately connected with it. I hope that the media intake of our future generations will be less pronounced yet technology and the globalization of information is making me nervous because more and more younger generations are even more dependent on technology. This assignment kind of reminded me of when my family went camping. When we went camping we tried to get as far away from industrialized society as we could by literally bushwacking into the middle of the wildreness without any modern technology like cell phones. My camping experiences remind me of the beauty of our natural world and how a part of me would like to stay uncorrupted not dependent upon technology because I feel it is creating a culture where information is instant. Hopefully I can be more patient in my day to day life and focus on specific goals instead of trying to multitask everything with the aid of technology. From the frontline movie Digital Nation we watched in class I have learned that my tendency to multitask my daily tasks through technology is not at all uncommon among college students and that this manner of accomplishing things is actually inefficient.
ReplyDelete