Media Binge and Media Faste

      With technology developing rapidly every year, disconnecting from the world becomes a hard task to achieve. Even as an outdoors man who likes to go on backpacking trips, areas not reached by 3G or 4G are rapidly disappearing. This thought has long resonated with me, and this media binge and fast were intense ideas to show how dependent we truly are on media.
           
       As introduced in Class, I first started with my media binge. With the media binge, my habits didn't really change as much as they did. This made me realize I am a complete media addict. From sun up to sun down, I was never off my phone, my computer or my T.V. With most of my time spent on reddit, I spent my time on r/news and r/world-news to keep up on the world. These sub-reddits provide a great source of news from inside the U.S and around the world, exploring the various issues debated around our globe. As I exhausted my continual updates, I explored hundreds of sub-reddits from r/hiking to r/aves. Reddit in my opinion is the best website on the internet. The information sorted and posted from tens of millions of people creates a great sense of community among the smaller sub-reddits. For this reason, Reddit was only one of the few sites I used in my media binge. The vastness of information held within Reddiit is amazing, as there is a sub-reddit for various particular issues or hobbies. For example, I spent 3 hours exploring r/DIY, or otherwise known as Do It Yourself. This sub-reddit is mainly a mix of posts containing on how to build certain objects or projects, like a desk or an entire cabin for example. The media binge, while not much different from my usual self, meant I had to explore many sub-reddits in order to feed my binge, This quasi- exploration let me see sub-reddits that I would've not have visited before. In the meantime, I did not spend much time on such sites like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. I did create a twitter in an attempt to get settled as many of my peers use twitter, but It just never felt necessary for me. However I did spend a lot of time on snap chat, as I communicate daily with numerous friends back home in Colorado and here in Nebraska. Yet with the others, I have a disconnect. While I did visit them, they are not my preferred source of media or information. Instead, if snap-chat or reddit was slow, I spent my time analyzing a lot various blogs that centered around my interests. In other times,  I watched Daredevil on Netflix  and various documentaries. For me, the media binge was a great experience that allowed me to explore my favorite sites and gain some valuable insight on various communities around the internet. However, I had an opposite reaction with the faste.

     At the start of the internet faste, I was not worried. I felt, with my collection of various books I have along with my schoolwork would be enough to get by. Boy was I in for a rude awakening. Despite having many JR Tolkien Novels and the Whole Harry Potter series (don't judge) I could not get over this dreaded of feeling of missing out. With my major I have many projects and clubs revolving around local and world politics, As a result, attempting to remain blind to news or updates was a complete turn around from my normal self.  At times, it felt like I was truly addicted to media or the internet. Instead of substances, I had a fix, or an controllable urge to check my updates. At times I gave in, promising myself only 5 minutes at a time to check my responsibilities and updates. However this plan broke down. I kept appeasing my hunger for news and information that I broke on the second day. I gorged out on reddit, on blogs, on music, and on Netflix. This is feeling I experienced was uncanny and unnerving to me. Yet towards the end I returned to a limited faste, only relying on cell phone and texts.

   This "experiment" was extremely beneficial to me in ways I never expected. While I try to lead a better, less technology influenced life in the summer time, sometimes coming back to Lincoln allows for me to get caught up in technology. However, in the future this will become more and more impossible. While this is an issue we all face, I also would like to reflect on how great technology is. In an instant, I can read about various issues around the world with the swipe of a finger. With these various forms of media, these connections, our world becomes better.