Binge/Fast

Binge:

Unfortunately, my week before finals was rather hectic having multiple class projects, a paper, and a few other assignments due before Friday. While I wasn’t able to focus much time on the binge portion of this assignment, I do feel that I have an interesting perspective on media bingeing. For much of my high school and college career, I have struggled to avoid social media and YouTube when I need to work on something important. I will close whatever window has some distraction open and I will say that I am going to start my homework. Not 30 seconds later, I have opened some new distraction. I would say that I am a procrastinator but I feel it’s more severe than that. It’s gotten to the point where I am actually considering seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist. Internet Addiction is a real disorder and I think I may have it, or at least some form of it.

This semester has been a non-stop media binge. I will often find myself opening several YouTube videos in separate tabs and watching them all, one-by-one for hours on end. I do this all while scrolling through Facebook and Twitter on my second monitor and/or holding conversations with my friends via text on my phone. The reason I think my perspective is interesting is because I am so used to this behavior. My eyes don’t get tired from screen time and I don’t feel like a sloth (However, I do when I look back and examine my behavior). Beyond that, it would be nearly impossible for me to actually binge relative to my normal media intake.

Throughout high school and my first semester of college, I somehow managed to maintain high grades. However, this semester, I wasn’t able to continue that. My media bingeing probably contributed to this. I would spend a majority of my time after classes checking up on social media until late at night. Often I wouldn’t begin my homework until 11:00 or 12:00 in the morning so I would stay up quite late working on it. Other times, I would procrastinate until I fell asleep, but I would make sure I set an alarm to wake up early and finish whatever I had to do. This cycle didn’t use to be this late at night. In high school, I wouldn’t start my homework until 9:00 or 10:00 and I would get to bed by midnight. However, over time, the cycle shifted later and later at night. I’m worried I will continue to let it shift to the point where I am not even doing homework. I have no idea why I can’t control myself but I do have confidence that if I see a specialist, I can learn more about my problem and figure out a way to combat it.

Fast:

Again, I wasn’t able to devote the entire three days to this portion because I needed my laptop for various projects. However, I had to spend nearly all my time on the projects so I wasn’t able to spend time on social media or YouTube anyway.  I did manage to fast for a day and a half and, looking back, I really wish I would have been able to devote the whole time to it because I made some incredibly interesting discoveries. After turning in my last assignment for the semester, I went back to my room and began my fast. I turned off my phone and didn’t open my laptop. I sat doing nothing for about 60 seconds. Then I saw all of the things I needed to pack up before I went home so I started doing that. Before long, I had to leave to go to a banquet with my curling team. We ate and played board games for a few hours. It was pretty easy to avoid digital media here because I had something by which to be distracted. When it was over, I went back to my dorm.

Knowing how little I could trust myself, I walked upstairs to a friend’s room. She knew I was on a media fast so she didn’t question why I showed up unannounced. I helped her pack for an hour or so. Her roommate, my other friend, asked us if we wanted to watch Bob’s Burgers in the other room. My first friend forgot about my fast and started heading out, but I reminded her and she stayed with me. She pulled out her colored pencils and we drew for a little bit. She lazily drew a picture of me, purposely drawn poorly. As I was bored, I spent some time trying to make her drawing look less like a child drew it. It didn’t work. We got bored with that and we just started talking. The discussion became very deep. We talked about life and the butterfly effect and how every little thing affects something else. I told her how if Hitler hadn’t done his horrible deeds, my Grandparents would not have met and I wouldn’t be here. We also talked about my problem with media addiction and what I could do to overcome it. The discussion became rather meta when I pointed out how insanely beneficial the media fast was and how I was able to think (and think deeply) about so many things. The media just distracts me from using my brain to its fullest potential. It was quite interesting to make this realization as it gave me more of a reason to look in to my media bingeing problem. I went to bed at around three in the morning.

I slept until 1:00 which was nice because I hadn’t gotten much sleep in previous nights. I spent basically the whole day organizing, packing, and cleaning my room. Previously, I didn’t foresee myself getting any of that done until after my final exams. So it’s definitely quite nice to be ahead of schedule there. Halfway through packing, I, without thinking, put on some Pandora to listen to while packing. I didn’t realize until much later what I had done. I guess my brain didn’t consider music to be digital media. I’m kind of disappointed in myself because I wonder what I would have thought about while packing instead of singing along to the music. I finished packing and went up to my friends room to see if she wanted to eat supper. We ate with her friends and I came back to my dorm. I spent the rest of tonight looking over my chemistry notes and writing this reflection. I got so bored with chemistry at one point. Knowing I couldn’t use my computer, I leaned back in my chair and looked at the ceiling for what felt like 5 minutes. I almost fell asleep but I caught myself and kept looking (or staring blankly) at my notes. I used the time to figure out what things I need to brush up on tomorrow when I can use the internet again.

Overall, I managed to avoid digital media for most of the fast. It felt really good to accomplish this and I want to try doing it more often. Maybe finding a way to have a “Media Sabbath” would be a possible approach to solving my media bingeing problem. I was surprised at how enlightening the experience was. I was expecting to learn some things about myself but certainly not to the degree that I did. Not being able to use my phone forced me to have conversations I would not have otherwise and I realized the merit behind the idea that young people are too absorbed in their phones that they won’t even acknowledge the world around them. I highly recommend everyone try a media fast at least once in their life (if not every month). I learned a lot and I am now more motivated to talk to a professional about my daily media binge.

Clouds: Extra Credit

Honestly, I found this lecture a little confusing. I thought the lecture was incredibly interesting and the photos of clouds were fun to look at, but I don't know if I can get on board with the idea that clouds are media. Judging from all of the graduate students around me, I think they would disagree, but the idea just went a little over my head. Also I thought the lecture would be about THE CLOUD, as in apple and he did finally touch on that towards the end. I thought the idea as the weather reports as the first web was very interesting and something I had never really thought about. I always thought sports or a search engine, but reflecting on it weather makes more sense. Weather channels are something we take advantage of so frequently today so it is very powerful to realize how revolutionary they were back in the day. I also thought that the idea that clouds are not actually safe and fluffy was really interesting and I drew conclusions to "the cloud" from that as well. We look at clouds and they seem so calm and safe, but they can turn on us in an instant and deliver rain, hail, or snow. Whereas "the cloud" is such a great idea and appears so safe, but so many people have ran into troubles in their personal life due to the cloud and technology as a whole. I also thought that his expansion on different types of clouds was interesting. Normally when someone says cloud you just think of the ones in the sky, but the idea that clouds can be created by us was something I had never really put a lot of thought into. I also thought his point that clouds have always been confined to the realm of non science was intriguing, and I agreed with him in that regard. When you think weather, you don't think clouds most often. They are more fun things to draw or make shapes out of. 

Media Binge, Media Fast

I feel like I need to start this with an introduction like you might at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting:

Hello, my name is Jonathan, and I spend an unhealthy amount of time on the internet. (The first step to curing your problem is admitting you have one, right?)

I've been aware for a long time that I spend entirely too much time online. I know that it definitely affects my grades. Whether it's binge-watching Mad Men (or Buffy for the 18th time, yes I'll proudly 'fess up to that) or scrolling through my Instagram feed for the hundredth time, I find myself spending   unconscionable amounts of time online. So for me, this media binge was not a huge change. I tried to really get into it. I put on headphones, borrowed my fiancée's iPad so I could have three screens, turned on Netflix and hunkered down for a two day binge-fest. Then she yelled at me for wearing headphones while watching Netflix, so I had to tone it down a little, but I did spend most of the next two days scrolling until my fingers bled. (slight exaggeration) Since my evenings usually consist of non-stop social media and Netflix anyway, I can't say that I felt too different. Since I was really pushing it, I did have a little bit of trouble sleeping, but nothing too drastic. To be honest, I'm not sure my fiancée even knew I was doing anything differently until I told her about it.

The media fast was another story entirely. Since finals are coming up, I tried to really apply myself to fasting and use the time to study or catch up on homework. I think in high school that may have been a little easier for me because there were always worksheets or textbooks to look at. Now, it's nearly impossible to abstain from the internet if you're trying to be productive. In college, everything is on Blackboard or the study guides are digital or the assignments are online. I tried to stay focused on the homework, but would find myself checking Facebook while the page loaded before I even realized I was doing it. Walking to school, I would be staring at my phone screen for several minutes before my brain caught up and reminded me I was supposed to shut it off. I'm not sure you could call what I ended up doing a fast. It was more like a practice in self flagellation, kicking myself every two minutes when I caught myself logging on.

It may well be that I have an addiction. Maybe we all do. Maybe it's just a habit. Is there really a difference there? Regardless of how you want to define it, it's pretty clear that the internet is not something I can cut cold turkey like I did with cigarettes. It's worked itself into every area of our lives while we weren't looking, and now we're too deep to get out. It's useful, true, but it's definitely a powerful habit that's hard to break.

Media Binge and Purge

As a student who wants to end up with a career working with photography and videography, I generally spend a lot of time using media apps such as Instagram, Boomarang, and Tumblr. I spend a lot of time on my phone normally, and during the binge, it felt like almost normal but almost as though I was just procrastinating studying more. It was fun and I actually got pretty creative! I came up with some good shots on my Canon which I haven't been using in a while. Being on my phone posting and scrolling, it actually inspired creativity from the media that I was viewing. It was like that experiment we did in class where we all came up with multiple variations of a sentence. How one thing inspired another. I got to experience that more during the binge. Following this came the purge. It was hard to take seriously. I don't like to not answer texts, calls, and emails which was the hard part. But I turned into the kind of person who just doesn't answer their texts for hours at a time. The kind of thing people get irritated by. When I wasn't on my phone I found myself spending more time with my boyfriend and getting more work done at the library. I would take out my phone still, but definitely cut back on usage. Maybe if it were a better time, rather than during the end of the school year, I might have tried to really not touch my phone. I hope that if I make it to a study abroad program in Botswana where we aren't allowed to use our phones for the month, I will experience true purging of media and will hopefully give my mind a break.
-Marissa Smith

Media Binge/Fast

The media binge and fast were both very disappointing for me, in the sense that I realized how dependent I actually am to technology and media in my every day life. I like to pride myself as an individual that can lead a healthy organic/technology free life and be able to survive without media and technology. That was until I did the binge and the fast.

During the three days of binge i realized that I binge on media all the time. I was literally constantly checking my Instagram and scrolling though meme pages, and I was doing the same with Facebook. I used snapchat a lot as well, but these were all the same ways I use media and technology anyways, but never really thought about it. I also realized that I was underestimating the internet and in a way misusing it. I say that because I have spend countless hours reading Facebook posts that have absolutely not contributed to my growth in any positive way. I could have used that time wiser and use the internet to better myself rather then just as entertainment.

During the three days of fasting I found out that my whole life is in my cellular device. The very first day I removed my social media apps from my phone and I did not use them (for two days).  However, I had to use my cellphone to call and text from the very first day, so I never actually did the fast. We ran into some difficulties as a group with out project so  had to use my phone to communicate with my group. Also, I had to use technology for school work. I did find out that I can't go one full day without listening to music, that did not really shock me. I have already accepted the fact that I can't live without music.

This experiment was truly helpful, and I do not say that just to make it sound good in this blog, I say it because I truly mean it. It is not just the experiment, but this class as whole has dramatically contributed in  opening my mind to all of the things that happen around me and that I have just never noticed. The one topic that we covered in class that is most appropriate to associate with this experiment is distance. Distance from all of the little things that happen online, the things that seem so harmless, but in reality end up taking hours and hours of our lives without giving anything meaningful and valuable in return. I think distance is a great thing, and should be used consistently in order to reflect on our growth overall.

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.  

Media Binge and Fast

First off I would like to say that I enjoyed this assignment immensely, both the media binge and fast were quite interesting to say the least. If anything the binge gave me an excuse to catch up and finish some of the shows I had been meaning to watch over the course of the semester. In my house there was already a tradition of using multiple television screens at once, which just so happens to be perfect for the assignment. Using this setup I decided to marathon the HBO series Rome, as well as catching up with all my current shows on the CW like The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow on one TV while my boyfriend and roommate played various games on the other. Now having two bigger screens with media playing constantly cannot only be disorienting when both are at "normal" volume, but when one is louder than the other it becomes natural to start to tune out the lower sound. At one point during my binge there was Sonic being played by my roommate on one TV, some Inuyasha episode playing in the background on the other, and I pulled out my phone not really thinking about it, and opened Facebook to surf. I think at this point of the binge I had hit an overload of stimuli. I noticed if anything because my attention was so divided that I was not truly paying attention to any one the screens. By the end of the binge I was having a hard time focusing on anything and noticed that my mind kept wandering when I did try to sit down and concentrate.
After my binge a media fast was sorely needed if only to give myself a reason to hunker down and focus on getting through dead week. During it I found I was actually quite productive, I spent most of my time in Love Library using the time away from TV to complete a couple final projects for various classes. I was able to concentrate without much effort which not like during the binge where it was almost a chore to try and stay focused on one thing. Overall this was an extremely positive experience I got to watch some of my favorite shows and I got some quality study and prep time for finals week.

by Nadria Beale

Media Binge and Media Fast

I assumed the media binge and media fast would be quite simple. When I stated the media binge I soon realized I would be a bit more challenging than I initially thought.


Aside from the necessary uses, I usually try to use my mobile devices as little as possible. At the start of the binge, it was a struggle to not put my phone down. I spent hours looking up as much content as possible and the more I consumed the less interested I became.  As I spent more and more time on my social media networks, like Facebook or Instagram, I did feel somewhat more connected and involved with others. However, I soon began to lose interest as more and more information presented itself. One could say I was experiencing a media overload and that as I took more information in, I was getting less out of it.

I felt relieved the second the media binge was over. Though sensation only lasted about half of the day going into the media fast. My hands were literally itching to check what I was missing or to make a status update. The back of my hands started to become red and sore from constantly fiddling with them. The best distraction I had came from writing. I had rewritten notes I taken in all my classes, I would write about the emotions I was experiencing at that moment, I would even write about the things I saw during the day. Eventually, I was able to acclimatize to the media fast. I am grateful because it did help me focus and prepare for exams by not getting distracted to check every notification sent to my phone.

Overall, I'd say the most challenging part of  the media binge and media fast would be coping with the physical side effects. During the binge, my eyes were constantly burning. I found myself using eye drops every two hours because they would be bloodshot red. During the media fast the biggest problem was with my hands. They looked like a had a rash. My advisor even noticed and asked if I was okay and if I wanted some ice for my hands.

I’d like to say I enjoyed the media binge and media fast, but I didn’t. It was complete torture from both sides. However, it did help me realize the value of compromise in all aspects of life.

Reflection

Elizabeth Woltemath

My social media binge and fast experiences were most likely a little unique from many student’s experience. I was not able to engage fully in the media binge, the reason being I discontinued my subscription to any social media accounts throughout this past year. I have found them to be a supremely and mind-numbingly waste of time and energy. Due to this, I am on a ‘media fast’ nearly everyday. So instead of participating in the media fast and binge, I reflected over the many ways that social media affects my life andthe lives of those around me .

I have realized that our culture is almost completely dependant upon high-tech applied science. Social media is perhaps the most prominent and affecting technological creations, and it plays a dominant role in the culture of today. These sites are especially favored by other students around my age; as they serve as a channel for users to quickly connect and keep up with others in our fast-paced society. Unfortunately, this generation has become so completely imbedded in this dominant media of today, they have lost the ability to deeply connect and fully communicate with the people around them. This something I noticed in my own life, and one of the main reasons that I stopped using social media.

I realized that the time I spent on social media was having a direct negative impact on the important relationships in my life. It had significantly decreased the value of my face to face interactions and I found myself constantly thinking about what was going on in the ‘other world’ of social media I hoped that by ending my relationship with social media, I could begin and new and more thorough relationship with myself. I realized, once I was without my it, that I had allowed my ‘connections’ on social media to become equally as important the relationships in my real life, including the relationship I had with myself, and I think this is a pretty common occurrence to in today’s media obsessed world. However, as time has gone on, I have come to the conclusion that social media is not an inherently negative thing, it simply depends upon how users decide to let it influence their lives.

media binge, fast

I consider myself a fairly moderate user of media. I use twitter, facebook, and snapchat on a regular basis to stay connected with friends and family. But also to keep up with news and events.The media binge and media fast took a noticeable toll on me during the last week. I often catch myself looking at very pointless videos or other time consuming things on social media and that usually means it is time to get off. However, with the media binge, I wasn't allowed to get offline. At first, it felt like work trying to constantly use media and have multiple screens up. I didn't know what I should be looking up or what news outlets to be focused on. Then I realized that it's almost impossible to constantly have multiple screens up in front of you and it to always be productive and useful information. Most of the time I found myself watching videos of pets or reading stupid Memes on tumbler. Therefore, much of it was wasting my time. I noticed it was hard for me to stay focused in school and I had trouble falling asleep. But it wasn't all bad. I was able to capture a lot of information about friends and current events that I might not of before. This helped me be more informed in conversations with friends and family and it also was a good way to start conversations with them as well.

When I began my social media fast, I was relieved to give my brain a break. And on the first day I could see my relationships strengthen with other guys in my fraternity and some classmates. Knowing that I didn't have the distraction of looking at my phone made me want to have deeper conversations with these individuals. I think many of them saw me a different way than usual. But then I noticed a lot of the topics of conversation became about news events and things people had seen on social media sites. Then, I felt a little out of the loop. I did notice that I was able to fall asleep faster and I went to bed earlier because I had much less distractions keeping me up. And I was much more productive in school during the day. I would use my time between classes to be doing homework and studying instead of browsing the internet and facebook.

Altogether, both the media binge and the media fast brought both good and bad. I think there is a middle ground that is the most ideal. I noticed that I myself use too much media on a day to day basis. But as an aspiring broadcaster and journalist, I need more media in my life than most people. I just need to make sure that the media I am receiving is useful information and is not just me wasting my time watching cat videos. Also, a media fast can sometimes make you lose your sense of a common place. The networks and information that I share online with friends and family become common knowledge and without that I can become somewhat of an idiot. And on the other hand with too much media I lost some of the face-to-face interactions with my friends and peers and was able to share more of a common connection with them once I got rid of media. So at the end of the day, I need to make sure that the media I am using has a purpose. Whether that purpose is to gain information or to just get away from the world for a minute. Either way, there needs to be a reason for using it.

Binge & Fast yo

The media binge that I partook in wasn't too much of a shock for me. Ultimately, I experienced more of an impact with the media fast. As for the media binge, it was truly rough. I do have multiple social media accounts such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, etc. but it really made my nights run later and my eyes burn. I figured that I would obviously be wasting time with this binge, and to get this as a class assignment was more shocking than anything, but I had one lasting realization: that I needed to delete my apps before finals. Mind you, not my actual social media accounts (duh), but my apps. The media binge was good for me because it gave me the chance to realize that we miss out on so much when we are not only glued to our social media, but our phones in general. Even reading Huffington Post articles or reading emails, we on average spend most of our free time glued to a screen that does more bad than good. So, right then I knew I needed a change. A change that I have never done in my six semesters of college thus far, and yes, I did delete my apps.

The media fast has been nothing but good things for me. I can selfishly admit I was a bit nervous to do something like this because I am so far away from home, so my social media is a way for me to see my family or friends posts from back home, which gives me a familiar face or two to see on my feed. That is what I ultimately enjoy about social media now a days, but this is a remarkable realization. I learned a lot about my time management and I am so happy I was assigned this task because it made it easier for me to do. When I would find myself bored, I would open my phone and guide my finger to where that app used to be to open it, then I remembered that I no longer had it. That was when I realized my problem was worse than I thought! I still, til' this day don't have my apps back, and I probably don't plan to get them back until after finals. Maybe even longer! I have done more, seen more and learned more than I thought I would from this media fast. I didn't think that deleting apps would be what I would have to do to fast, but I knew it needed to happen to have a lasting impact. 
Overall, as a communication major I am constantly communicating through social media and texting, but I really appreciated an assignment like this. I think most classes should try it at least once so kids can see what it is like to step outside in the real world and not rely on a piece of technology to get you through the day. 

Media Binge / Fast

I believe that the media binge and fast were both interesting experiences with very different points they were trying to prove. One thing I realized during the fast was how often I would rely on technology for entertainment. Something that I noticed during the binge is that often the same technology I rely on isn’t always very entertaining. Like most other things in life, technology is all about moderation and finding a balance that works for you.

The most jarring difference I noticed during the fast wasn’t what I saw or did, but what I heard. My very first semester at UNL I had a class with Clark Potter called “The Music Experience” and I really enjoyed it. One thing I remember clearly from the class was his point about how music is less special now than it once was. In times before MP3 players, cds, records, or even the radio, music was something that you had to actively seek out. If you heard a piece of music you enjoyed that was played by musicians, there was no way to hear it again without buying another ticket to hear it performed live. In this time music was a luxury that was difficult to experience if you couldn’t afford to go to performances. Today we see almost the exact opposite effect. There are so many streaming / radio apps available that you can basically listen to any song at any given time. On a technology filled day my bike rides to class have a set playlist of songs that rotate randomly, but during the fast other things stood out. The rapid repetition of clicking from the gears and chirping of birds overhead mixed in a way that made me appreciate that there wasn’t any artificial noise being pumped into my ears. I also noticed how heavy I would have to breathe after pedaling up the bridge going to and from the bottoms, which I appreciated a little less.

The most important thing that I took out of this entire binge and fast experience is that while my phone, computer, headphones, and wide array of other gadgets can be nice, I really don’t always need them. I’ll definitely try to keep this idea in mind in the future, and try to have more offline experiences.

Media binge/fast

            To be truthful, I struggled with both portions of this assignment. Although the media binge was less difficult, it was still hard to be constantly engaged in media and focus on multiple things at once. I found myself a lot of the time having to reread and rewatch what I was engaging in. If this was the case, was I really engaged? I would argue no since I had to go back and focus on each thing one at a time to really make sense of what I was looking at or watching. The binge was helpful since I had so many group projects to work on. Keeping in contact and up-to-date on them made the group project process less stressful since everyone was on the same page with group chats. In all, I felt like the binge was the closer extreme to my daily media life than the fast.

The media fast was extremely difficult to adhere to and remember. In order to hold myself to the fast, I ended up turning off the data on my phone and turning on the do not disturb function to prevent myself from looking at my phone as frequently to see if I had any notifications. The fact that I had to do those things scares me a little. Primarily because if a simple task of NOT doing something is difficult, what does that say about the importance of it in our society? It says that we place greater importance on catching up on our social medias rather than completing more meaningful tasks or interacting with individuals face to face. After a day or so I got used to not being as attached to my phone.  It was nice to not have to worry about it so often throughout the day knowing that I didn’t have any red notification symbols to tend to so they could disappear. I also felt like I was able to accomplish a lot more homework since I didn’t become distracted on Facebook or YouTube. On the other hand, it was difficult to finish group projects because I wasn’t seeing the messages right away. In the end, everything worked out, though. I actually really enjoyed the peace of minimal to no media during my fast. It’s also good practice for my summer job working as a counselor at a camp that excludes the use of cellphones while camp is happening (unless it’s an emergency). In the future, I hope to adopt more of a media fast mindset so I am able to use my time in a more productive manner and strengthen current, non-online relationships. In the long run, I think a daily media routine similar to a media fast would result in being less stressed. Let’s see what happens!

A lot of the issues I came across while participating in the media binge and fast relate to some of the readings we did earlier in the class. Specifically, I found my attention getting scattered to other articles, quizzes, and videos. I would go onto Facebook to do a quick check and would get distracted and waste more time than I intended to spend due to my attention constantly being scattered to other links.  I also wouldn’t thoroughly read articles, I would power browse. Once I noticed myself doing this, I started to thoroughly read some articles and ended up gaining more out of them when I did scanning them.

Both extremes had their positives and negatives when it came to adhering to them. I feel that my daily life is similar to the media binge but my ideal daily media routine is similar to the media fast.