Position Paper #1

Personal Media Usage 

    The first type of media that comes to mind when I think of my personal media usage is social media. However, while social media is what I would say takes up the majority of my media usage, other things such as texting or even “Googling” can also be included into one’s personal media practices. When I examine my media usage on a daily basis, I can see that most of the time is spent communicating with other people. Of course, that means texting, but I believe it can also include Snapchatting, sending videos or pictures to my friends on social media, or even commenting on someone’s post. The idea and concept of communicating has quickly evolved into more than just writing, texting, or calling someone. Now, not only can we communicate with those closest to us, but we can also now communicate with strangers across the world with the touch of a button.

    This assignment came at a very interesting time in my life because lately I have begun noticing more and more just how much of a negative effect media has on my life. Being a Mass Communications/Mass Media major, media is obviously a huge part of my academic life. While I do not feel as though my media usage academically has that much of a negative impact on me, I can definitely see and feel it in my personal life. For the majority of the time, in my media practices for purely academic reasons, I mainly only feel a negative effect if I am focusing on a certain controversial or upsetting topic that is happening in the main media. Sometimes it can be a bit of a letdown when I read or watch media that is surrounded around upsetting issues in our society. For the most part, though, I am able to keep a brighter outlook on life throughout those issues.

    It is much harder to say the same thing for my personal life. I used to believe that the media, specifically social media, could only hurt a person if they were already in a depressive state or if they were not very secure in themselves. However, as I have gotten older and realize just how toxic social media and the people on it can be, I have noticed myself getting increasingly upset or anxious over comments on an Instagram post or a TikTok video. More often than not, when I begin to realize just how stressed or troubled I am getting because of social media, it is because of what people say in regard to my lifestyle or my beliefs. While most of the time the comments are not specifically referring to me, just simply knowing that I am a part of a group that someone might be talking about is enough for me to get worked up over and to make me realize that I need to take a break from the media.

    One example of a specific way my media usage has a negative effect on my personal life is in the context of my faith. I am a Christian and I am completely unashamed of that fact. However, nowadays it has become so incredibly common for people on social media to talk bad about and disrespect people of all beliefs, especially Christianity. I can personally recall multiple experiences recently where I have gotten so worked up over a video or comment that was talking bad about Christianity or discrediting God to where I have had to completely put my phone down and ease off of my media consumption. In these past couple of weeks, I have especially noticed how this has seeped into the other parts of my personal life and how easy it can be to let the negative affects of social media make its way into my thoughts or attitude.

    I have mentioned to a great extent how my personal media usage has negatively affected me, but there are also many positive effects that I gain from media. Earlier, I mentioned that I use media most of the time for communicating with other people, and I believe that is where most of my positive takeaways come from. Whether it be an encouraging text from a friend, an old memory with family that pops up on Facebook, or even a funny video on TikTok that brings me a few seconds of humor, my personal media usage can and has brought positive moments into my everyday life. I have also seen these affects in my academic personal media usage. When doing research for a blog post or a media presentation, the world is seemingly at my fingertips and it is very inspiring when I can find so many great research sources across multiple media platforms.

    One major factor that I believe greatly affects a person’s media usage is daily routine. Someone’s location, job, and hobbies could all be major factors in how and when they use media. I want to explain this by examining two very different daily routines and analyzing how that correlates with the amount of media usage. I am going to be comparing my personal media usage with my boyfriend, Cole’s, media usage. Firstly, I definitely believe that a person’s free time, and what they do with that free time, directly relates with their personal media usage. Mine and Cole’s free time is vastly different and that comes across in our media usage numbers.

Abby (left) personal media usage, the majority being social media sites. Cole (right) personal media usage, the majority being text messages. Both pictures were recorded from February 11, 2021 as of 9:00 PM.

     First, our school schedules allow our free time to be very contrasting. Cole only has classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays that he is required to attend, while the rest of his classes are self-paced online classes. I have classes every day of the week and all are required for me to attend either in person or over Blackboard Collaborate. Since Cole does have so much free time outside of classes, he works five out of seven days of the week most days. When he is not working, he is usually playing basketball with some of his friends or working on schoolwork at home. Since I am in class so much more, my natural instinct when I am not in class is to get on my phone, iPad, or laptop and watch movies or tv shows or even just scroll through social media instead of possibly doing something a bit more productive. This causes my amount of media usage to be much higher (on a daily basis, surprisingly not depicted in the pictures above from Thursday, February 11) than Cole’s and provides a bigger variety of media outlets than are represented in his usage.

    To sum this up, I believe that daily routine plays a key part in how much or how little someone uses any kind of media. While it can be a bit humiliating to look at, I definitely recognize just how much I spend on multiple media platforms, and how that may also negatively affect my academic and personal life. Media can be a fun and lighthearted place, but it can also be filled with toxicity and heavy topics. I think it is important for people to be aware of their personal media usage and take the steps necessary in order to produce a healthier and more productive mental mindset that can pour over into the other areas of their life.