Personal Media

     In the modern age of social and mobile media it's not uncommon for us to get engrossed in our devices. Our heads stuck in screens instead of taking in the world around us. I'm certainly guilty of this but I don't think it's as major a crisis as some older people would have us believe. It's a bit insulting for me personally to for people to assume that just because I'm using a device that I'm goofing around. As a Mass Communications student I do almost all of my research online on a phone, tablet, or laptop and all the content I take in is just fuel for future journalistic fires I'm sure to churn out. Is there such a thing as too much when it comes to media? Not for me personally, I tend to jump around a lot due to my ADD and ADHD kicking in frequently. Multitasking actually helps me focus, in fact I'm also browsing social media and playing Smash Bros as I type this. What media do I intake most, where does it come from? 

    I suppose I have an obvious answer but first I took a look at the options that I could easily measure. I use Instagram as well as Snapchat and I can get a pretty accurate estimate of how much I use them on a daily basis. I looked at the data through Instagram and it was showing that I clock and average of around 2 hours a day on the app. Which initially may sound like a lot to some. The average time most users spend on the app is around 53 minutes or less a day. I thought about my habits and the more I did the more my time made sense. It turns out I am in the second largest user demographic of 18 to 24 which makes up 22.8 percent of users.  I'm a bit socially awkward at certain times that usually results in me doing something to occupy myself like constantly checking my watch, rolling up my sleeves, or browsing Instagram. I'd wager a good quarter of my time on Instagram is spent while I'm in public attempting not to make unnecessary eye contact with strangers. I use it to stay up to date on all sorts of news about movies, videogames, and world events. I also follow a number of sports pages. I don't use the DM features as much as I used to but I still text friends on it from time to time. Memes consume a massive amount of my time on the daily. I follow all the best meme pages such as DonnyDrama and HistoryInMemes. My friends and I have a group chat that we rarely talk in, we just send memes to it at all hours of the day. As far as pop culture goes Comicbook is one of the best pages around for breaking news on all things nerd. I follow a ton of musicians and actors so my feed is always interesting and often times informative. Following directors gives me updates on all sorts of upcoming projects. In addition to browsing other peoples posts I also make my own. Often times my posts will be related to music or some current event. I enjoy posting my own music on my page so I can get feedback from people. 

    Snapchat is another form of media I use a decent amount. I average anywhere between 20-50+ minutes a day. I use Snapchat primarily for messaging my friends. Most of my messages are sent in group chats such as the one I use to manage my fantasy basketball league called "Now THIS is Podracing". I also subscribe to stories from various media outlets such as IGN's Daily Fix featuring the lovely Sydnee Goodman bringing me the latest in nerd news. I also enjoy watching channels that make content specifically for the app like Crushin' It! which posts videos of satisfying destruction. I follow many friends and acquaintances and watch their stories throughout the day. I skip through a lot of them but it's a sort of compulsion to thumb through all of them to clear them off of my queue. Evidently this is also the case with many of my friends I've asked about it as well. Overall I probably get less entertainment out of the media I consume on Snapchat than Instagram. This is probably due to Instagram being a streamlined feed of things I've specifically chosen to follow that I can scroll endlessly. 

    If the gentlemen above (Rhett and Link) look familiar it is likely due to the fact that like with me, they are a part of many people's daily media routine. The obvious answer I mentioned earlier in this article is streamed entertainment such as music or television. One example is my time spent on YouTube. Every day while I eat lunch and sometimes dinner I watch a program featuring the two men in this photo called Good Mythical Morning. I spend anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour or more watching their content daily. Their hit show has been running since 2012 and has over 1800 episodes so needless to say I've had a lot to watch over the years. In addition to web series I stream a lot of music through YouTube as well. I would estimate I play a 2+ hours worth of music a day. I play music while I study, drive, shower, and game. Most of the time I have some sort of background noise. My favorites to stream recently have been Mom Jeans who I've written about in depth for one of my other classes. As far a television goes I have a subscription to nearly any online service you could name so I watch a lot of it. I usually like to keep one or two shows in rotation exclusively for binging purposes. I'll pick older shows with multiple seasons to work through as I have free time. My choice lately has been Naruto Shippuden. I've stayed up literally all night binging episodes at times much to the me who has to wake up the next day and work's dismay. I always tell myself I don't need sleep I need to find out what happens next, being tired is a problem for tomorrow Jonah. 

    Lastly I'll speak briefly on my gaming habits. My friends at Eichenberger are major gamers. They can play for hours on end and often end up dragging me along for the ride. The two games we've probably put the most hours into recently have been Smash Bros and For The King. Both can eat up hours like nothing if you aren't cautious. Smash Bros is somewhat of a nightly routine for the lobby. For The King is very similar to D&D and is generally reserved for times when everyone is caught up on homework. Our last playthrough lasted about five hours in total and it was grueling. I won't even begin calculating the time I waste in a seven day week playing videogames but I would guess it it's at least 15 or more. How do I have time for all of this media and my actual life? The world may never know.