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
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