I decided to log Friday and Saturday because those were the two days I thought I would use media the most, so I was interested to see how much media I used on the days I used it the most. I thought I would use it more on Saturday than on Friday, but I was surprised to find out it was the opposite.

I used social media for the first time at 9:00 am when I woke up and scrolled through Instagram, pretty much the first thing I do every morning. I continued to use media throughout the day, like listening to music while walking from class to chilling in my dorm watching Netflix. I had a lot of homework to due this weekend, so naturally I procrastinated and watched a lot of Netflix. That was pretty much all I did Friday because I’m done with class at 12:00. I periodically checked my various social media accounts throughout the day, mostly just Instagram and Snapchat. I went to dinner and hung out with friends Friday night, so I really wasn’t on social media too much after 7:00 except to take a snapchat or two with one of my friends.

On Saturday, I continued to put off homework by watching Netflix and online shopping. I got on Instagram when I woke up like usual, but I didn’t check it again until around mid-afternoon. When I did get on it again, I (regretfully) spent about 15 minutes scrolling through the explore page looking at random accounts. I started to do some homework, so I made sure to put my phone away for a while. I got dinner with my sister, and then went to my friend’s dorm beside me to paint and relax with a couple of friends from our hall. I used social media occasionally to snap what I was doing to some of my friends and family back home. I got on social media and watched a little bit of Netflix before I went to bed.

This blog assignment was really interesting because I was able to see how much time I spent on media. It also opened my eyes to what could be considered media. I realized that I waste a lot of my time on media, whether it be Instagram, Snapchat, Netflix, or Youtube. I also noticed I used media more when I had homework to do and I didn’t feel like doing it. I did pretty well with making sure to put away when I was with friends, which surprised me. I didn’t use social media as much as I thought I did; my media time was mostly spent watching Netflix. All in all, this was a pretty cool “experiment” and opened my eyes to things I wasn’t aware of before. I will definitely be monitoring my time on Netflix thanks to this!

Goodness, I must not be a young person.

I say that because it seems that stereotypical young people always seem to be on their phones. Whether they’re on social media, taking pictures or doing research (this is actually a thing), they’re always on their phones.

I, on the other hand, pick up my phone when I’m around other young people. So I guess I’m only a young person when other young people are around. Honestly, I only get on Twitter  when I’m eating in a dining hall around young people, or when I’m at home with my roommate. Other than that, I don’t ever get on social media much.

Apparently, I’m just not a young person until I’m around other young people. And realizing this made me want to use my phones more. I would find myself trying to get a lot of data to analyze. Because of this, there is a lot of data that is not generally applicable to my normal everyday life. For this reason, it’s interesting to see that apparently I’m actually somewhat self-conscious about my media usage.

This media probe brought about some unexpected realizations about my media habits, specifically on social media. I logged usage on Friday the 4th and Saturday the 5th.

My Friday’s are rather uneventful days, as I only have one class beginning at 10:10. I wake up around 9 and browse through all of my social media(Snapchat, text, Bleacher Report, News, Groupme, Instagram). All of this is out of procrastination of the day and my lack of energy to get out of bed. While showering I listened to music through spotify as I usually do. On the way to class I am texting and listening to music. During class I occasionally check messages and emails as my class is a lecture class and being on my phone is not noticeably bad. However, this particular econ class prohibits the use of computers. This forces me to take notes with pen and paper which is not foreign to me. After class I went back to my rooms and actually took a 4 hour nap. Dazed and confused when I awoke, I checked just about every form of social media. I noticed that I wasn’t actually interested or even procrastinating anything, but I was actually curious and almost nervous to see if I had missed out on something in the electronic world while asleep. I move on with the day and Facetime my mom. After, I go to the gym and use spotify to listen to music. In between working out I noticed that I was browsing through instagram and responding to snapchats instead of actually being productive and working out. After the gym I ate dinner by myself and watched netflix. I went back to the dorm and did some homework and actually had to shut my phone off because I was getting nothing done. This lasted until 3 AM when I finally looked at messages before bed.

On Saturday I woke up at 2 PM very confused. Again, “Fear of Missing Out” set in and I habitually checked all forms of social media. I felt like I had to relive the part of the night that I had had my phone shut off for, as well as the entire morning. I scrolled through Instagram, snapstories, checked sports scores on Bleacher Report as well as read Fox News. I seriously felt as if I needed to be updated on my friends past 20 hours. I then went on to listen to spotify in the shower. After that I went and played Tennis with some friends and during breaks I responded to texts. After this, I went and showered and played some Xbox with minimal media exposure besides Xbox, the intended activity. Next I went to dinner with some friends and noticed my tendencies(as well as my friends) to check their phones mid conversation which definitely hindered the flow of communication.  After dinner, we watched the UGA game on TV, as well as streamed various other games on our laptops simultaneously. I was responding to texts and snapchats throughout the duration of this as well. After the game, I went to a party of which most people were taking pictures, sending snapchats, or responding to texts. I found myself doing the latter two. My night was still fun but the fact that I had my phone with me at all sort of tempered the amount of fun I could possibly have; it was always being interrupted. Before bed, as a procrastination attempt for sleep I watched Netflix. At 3 AM Creswell actually had a fire alarm go off, so I ended up snapchatting that as well along with many other students.

Overall I noticed that most of my media and social media activities were not intended. I never experience some special sort of joy or satisfaction out of the interaction. This has become a sort of habitually unnatural phenomenon in my life and seemingly in others as well. I constantly am looking at my phone not out of enjoyment but habit or need. The fact that I can actually feel like I was missing out on something when I sleep for a long period of time or shut my phone off somewhat defines this generations dependency on social Media. No matter what we are doing or have just been doing, we will always be interacting with some form of media.

From logging my media usage on Thursday and Saturday I surprisingly found that I used media less on the weekend day versus the weekday. It was probably the circumstances of the week’s events that made it so because I would have expected my media use to be much higher on the weekend rather than on the weekday.

This past Thursday I was using media pretty much constantly. During the week I tend to spend most of my time alone, especially in between classes, so walking to and from classes I am always using my phone to listen to music or look at social media. Once I get to class though I will put my phone away; however, I then pull out my laptop to take notes. In class I am reading from the professor’s projector screen and simultaneously typing up notes in Word. On Thursdays I have MIST where we learn how to master Excel so I have to use my laptop for the class anyway.  After MIST I listened to music again on my way back to my dorm just to go watch a quick episode on Netflix before my next class in another hour. The other class I had on Thursday was my History of Rock n Roll class where I also use my laptop to take notes while simultaneously looking at the projector screen where the notes are displayed. In this class we listen to examples of the music genres we learn about so I was still using media nonstop. After class ended I went to have lunch by myself, but I also preoccupied myself by studying for a bio test, looking at notes on eLC while eating. For the rest of the day I was studying for tests I had. My geography test was Friday so from 8pm to almost 2am my friend and I were in the MLC studying, constantly looking at our laptops to refer to and edit the Google Doc of the study guide we created while writing notes on a whiteboard. Everything I needed to study for the day I needed to use my laptop so I couldn’t get away from media usage.

On Saturday one of my best friends visited me from KSU, and we were able to have some quality bonding time. She came in the evening around 6, so before her arrival I was studying bio at the MLC for 4 hours because I knew I wouldn’t be studying later since I had to host. With her I found myself actually using media less than Thursday because we could talk in person and catch up with each other. Nothing on our phones seemed to be interesting us more than each other’s company. For a good 2 or 3 hours we just sat in my dorm just talking and catching up with some friends she hadn’t seen in a while that also go to UGA. We had a nice night in and watched a movie on Netflix like we always used to do.

It surprised me that I used media way more on a weekday than on a weekend day, but I think that happened because of the timing of events. Having 2 tests to study for definitely made me use media more while having my best friend to host got me to put the media down and enjoy her company without the technology, at least for a little bit.

After two days of logging and observing my social media usage, I realized I use my phone a lot more on the weekends as opposed to on a typical weekday. I made sure to observe my usage on a day I know I would use social media more frequently (Friday) as opposed to days I spent solely studying for my chemistry test (Monday-Wednesday). I frequently used social media apps on my phone when eating at dining halls or when I’m simply just chilling in my dorm room. On a weekday, I tend to not use it as much during the day (when I have classes), but observed my highest usage between the 4-6pm when I go back to my dorm after a long day of classes. This is because I like to relax during this time period and check up on everything I’ve missed during the day. I also tend to use social media before I go to bed as well. On Saturday, I found myself using social media pretty consistently throughout the day, as I was not so occupied with school and classes.

Besides the amount of time I use social media, I also observed what certain platforms I use. I use Snapchat the most, as this is an easy way to communicate with friends, and also use Twitter and Instagram. At the end of both days (Friday and Saturday) while I was out with friends, my phone died. This made me realize how often I actually do use my phone and how much those social media apps drain my battery. While I was still out with friends, I would often attempt to turn my phone on to check a certain social media app, only to remember that my phone was dead. However, it made me realize that checking these apps was not a necessity at the time, as I should be paying more attention to my friends and the current moment we’re enjoying rather than being engrossed by social media.

After logging my media use, I realized that I just use Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram when I’m bored. I logged Thursday and Saturday which are two days that were completely different for me. Thursday’s are always long for me because I have 3 classes. Saturday, I went to the football game in Kentucky. So the two days I chose to log were a lot different from each other.

Thursday I had 3 classes, Government, Psychology, and Math. I’m so rushed in the mornings because I’m not really a morning person and don’t have time to check my social media accounts so I usually check them once I get to class. During class, I used my email, and eLC. In government, my professor uses a PowerPoint to lecture from. I took my notes the night before so that in class I can follow along and pay attention to what the professor was saying. I used my laptop in class to follow along on the PowerPoint. I had also during that time accessed Excel to calculate a grade for a class. In Psychology, I took notes by hand on the lecture. We watched several videos in class that were related to the lecture. We also used this website called menti.com to do like a polling thing that had a few questions on it. On Thursday, I also read some of a chapter out of my government book and listened to my music while reading.  In Math, I had already taken the notes for class. While in class, I listened to lecture and did the examples in my notes throughout class. Throughout the day, I periodically checked my Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook. It would only be for a few minutes or when I was bored.

Saturday was a lot different than Thursday. It was a busy day so I wasn’t really on social media that much. I checked my accounts when I got up to see what went on and see if I had any notifications. My parents had the T.V. on in the hotel room while I was getting ready. We tailgated with some of our friends and while doing that I checked social media a lot because I was bored majority of that time. While tailgating, we watched some football games on T.V. While at the game, I couldn’t access my social media accounts because there wasn’t any service in the stadium so I tried to post pictures to Snapchat but nothing would load. There were videos and music played while at the game.

From logging my media usage, it really shocked me. I realized that when I’m busy I try not to check my social media. I normally check it when I’m bored. Before this assignment, I guess I didn’t realize that things like, taking notes in class, reading out of a textbook, watching videos or listening to music was really consider media. So really, I’m constantly using media but didn’t realize it till now.

The first and last thing that I look at every day is media. When my alarm first goes off in the morning, after hitting snooze a few times, I automatically grab my phone and start scrolling through my social medias. I start by checking and messages or notifications that I might have missed during the night and then I make my way from Instagram to Snapchat to Facebook. At night, I get in bed and plug my phone into its charger which happens to be right by my head and then I scroll through all my social medias as I did in the morning. I noticed that many times I would just pointlessly scroll through different social medias while barely even looking at what was on my screen. I wasn’t really paying attention because this was just an instinctive activity that I do before I go to bed each night.

While my morning and nights are full of social medias like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat, I noticed that during the day I use school medias like email, eLC, and Microsoft Word to take notes during class more than I use my social medias. Although, I did always notice myself reaching for my phone and pointlessly scrolling through Instagram whenever I got a little bored during the day. I check my phone so much during the day that I usually have to charge it a couple of time during the day because the battery starts to run very low. From logging my media usage, I noticed that almost everything that I do every day relies on media in some sort of way.

After documenting all of my media use for one weekday and one weekend day, I realized just how much time I dedicate towards using media. I knew that I spent a good amount of time on media, but I really did not realize just how much time I spend on my phone especially. I also realized how little apps I use, after documenting both days I only used two different apps, Instagram and Snapchat. During the weekday I was hoping that I didn’t use a lot of media besides books and using my laptop for classes, but it turns out the day I did my documenting I literally did not have any school work to do, so all of my media use was dedicated to my phone and the TV, which made me feel pretty bad about myself! What I thought was interesting about my weekday documenting was I used Snapchat a lot less than I thought, because I realized how much it drains my battery, and I even realized that if I open Snapchat when my phone batter is at 30% or lower, my phone will immediately run out of battery. I happened to go home this weekend, so I my documentation for my weekend day was very different than my average weekend day media use. Since I was with my family, I used my phone a lot less than I normally would, and I watched more TV than I usually would on an average weekend day or weekday because of NFL games, despite the fact that my team the Patriots had a bye week. My TV use topped 3 hours today and my phone use ended up being less than that. Even though it was not a typical weekend day, I realized just how much my entertainment relies on my phone and TV!