Final Reflection

Media Binge:

I honestly did not enjoy this as much as I thought I would. I feel like I am pretty well balanced about my media usage and this disrupted my balance. I also was not able to do this as much as I would have liked to because of school, but even taking that into consideration I really was unimpressed with it. My eyes hurt from looking at a lit up screen so much, I found it really hard focusing on things for extended periods of time, and honestly I was really bored. Maybe I don’t media right or follow the right people, but I found the binge to be exhausting and found my social media sites boring. I do have to say though, I really loved the excuse to get caught up with all of my shows (If you have Hulu you must watch 11.22.63…It is so good and the historical nerd in me loves it wayyyy too much). I also found myself a lot less aware of my surroundings, which led to a lot of awkward bumping into people. I also used it as an excuse to follow a lot of people on Instagram that I had been avoiding following.  

 

Media Cleanse:

MEDIA IS EVERYWHERE. I was really excited about this assignment. I started off by deleting all of my social media apps. And for the first hour I did well. And then I looked at my phone and had about six texts asking me to look at something for a class or for a club. I never realized how much I utilized Facebook. Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat were avoidable, but the shear amount of things on Facebook is ridiculous. I did my best to only use Facebook for the necessary thing and then log out, and overall I think I did pretty well and avoided scrolling for the most part. I think the most eye opening thing about the cleanse is how much media plays into our social lives. My roommate was constantly telling me to look at something or asking me if I had seen something. During group gatherings, the conversation revolved around different posts and made me feel extremely isolated. I think that was the biggest take away from the cleanse overall, I felt incredibly disconnected and isolated by not being on my social media. I have a lot of weak ties on social media, but even my strong ties are incredibly enhanced by the use of media. I also found that I had more difficulty sleeping during the cleanse, because my bedtime routine was disrupted. Normally before bed I devote twenty or so minutes to catching up on the day, responding to any unanswered emails, and scrolling through Pinterest and it was very difficult going to bed without doing that. I would be really interested in doing this when I am not in school and can actually fully step away from my phone.

Overall Impressions:

I think media is an amazing tool and as society develops it is becoming more and more essential to us. However, I think moderation is key. The world around us is beautiful and the random conversations held throughout are day are an important growing experience. So much can be missed if we are constantly consuming media. And likewise, things can be missed if we don’t see pay a little attention to our digital lives.