This class taught me to look more deeply into my own media usage. The assignment where we had to keep track of our media usage for a couple of days really gave me a lot of insight into how I use media. I never really realized how prevalent media is in our world and how often I use it. The media is pretty hard to avoid.

I think that I will continue to look deeper into my usage of media after this class. This class opened my eyes to different sides to media that I did not really think about, like legacy media and handwritten letters. Media is definitely something that everyone needs to be aware of since it is such a big part of our world.

After logging my media last week, I noticed that I use media a lot more than I really thought I did, so I thought that this week I would try and use media less.  This started off going pretty well for about a day until I suddenly got really sick on Sunday. There is not much to do when you are sick expect watch TV, scroll through social media, and listen to music, which all require constant media usage. I found myself constantly being glued to either my phone, the TV, or both at the same time because there didn’t seem like there was anything else for me to do. The media sort of served as my sole entertainment and distraction for this week that I was sick. I did not count how long I was on media, but if I had, it most likely would have been 10.5 out of the 12 hours that I was awake each day. After a while my eyes would start to hurt probably from staring at screens for too long, but that didn’t stop me from checking my social medias or watching a new movie.

While this may have been an unusual week, I still think that I use media way more than I should. One thing that I learned from trying to use media less is that I am addicted to media. The more I tried to stop, the more I wanted to check snapchat to see if anyone had updated their story in the past twenty seconds or watch yet another episode on Netflix. Even while writing this blog post, I noticed myself reaching for my phone and scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat to see if anything new was happening. Even though I knew that there would be nothing new to see, I kept checking out of instinct.

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.

When I google my name the first three things that come up are my Youtube account, which has all my science projects from highschool on it, my Instagram account, and my twitter account. My Instagram account is private so anyone that opens this page will not be able to see my pictures unless I have accepted their follow request. My twitter account, which would be deleted if I could remember my password, is also private and has not been posted on in about three years. I am not very present on the social medias that I have. I am usually the type of person that will open Facebook or Instagram and scroll through for about a minute and then leave without posting anything.

I used to regularly go through and delete all of my old posts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Looking back, this was a good and a bad thing. It was a good thing because all of those embarrassing posts from fifth grade are now gone and cannot be brought back to haunt me. But, this is also a bad thing because I deleted many of the pictures that I had from when I was younger on my Facebook and now these pictures cannot be retrieved again. At the time, I had deleted this posts because I thought they were weird and embarrassing, but sometimes I wish that I had kept them. Many times some of my best friends will social media stalk themselves and find old pictures and posts from many years ago that are embarrassing, but these posts will make them laugh and remember and make fun of their younger self. While I did save myself from the embarrassment of having these old posts resurface, I also lost the chance to relive some of my old memories.

I decided to interview my mom, whose social media use is much different from my own. She has had a Facebook for about six years and an Instagram for about two weeks, which she uses as a way to post pictures from special occasions and keep up with her friends and family. I would say that I check social media about fifty times a day as a habit while my mom says that she checks her social media maybe twice a day, once in the morning and once at night.

My mom has never really been that big on social media. She has always had a Facebook, but it is very rare that she should ever post on it. She says she like to have it to see what all of her old friends are up to. I was extremely surprised about two weeks ago when I went on Instagram to see that I had a follow request from my mom. I would have never expected her to get an Instagram, but she said all of her friends are switching from Facebook to Instagram so she wanted to do the same. She said that she feels like people post too much on Facebook and that they tend to be less boastful on Instagram. I guess this shows how social medias are broadening to include different types of users. I was extremely shocked when just last week my grandmother, whose only social media is email, decided to get an Instagram.

While neither my mom or my grandmother have posted anything yet on Instagram, they say that they like to use it as a way to keep in touch with their close friends and family. While people my age tend to follow many people that they barely know, I have noticed that people my mom’s age only follow and accept follow request from a more exclusive group of people that they know very well.

I have always been a big social media user since the day I first got a Facebook in fourth grade. I see social media as a way to keep up with others and for others to keep up with me. Today, I have noticed that I use social media less because there are so many people now it is hard to keep up. After coming to UGA, I was bombarded with Facebook friend requests and Instagram follow requests by other people who go to UGA or older girls in my sorority. Of course I had to accept the requests and follow the people back so that they did not think that I was being rude, but now my news feeds are full of pictures and posts of people that I barely know. Because of this, I have not been as eager to check my social media as often. Now instead of being able to scroll through my feed and see pictures of my close friends, I must scroll through and wonder how/if I even know the person that posted the picture.

I have never been much a picture taker. This is partly because I am just too lazy to take a picture and partly because I feel like taking the time to have a photoshoot to get the perfect Instagram photo sort of distracts me from just enjoying the experience. My friends used to always say, “you know you had fun when you didn’t take any pictures or post any snapchat stories.” While some people post snapchat stories to share something funny with all their friends, I feel that sometimes people post stories just to show people how much fun they are having. It makes me wonder if they are really having a great time if they are spending the whole night on their phone on social media.

Media at the University of Georgia is much more prevalent than it was at my high school. While students both at my high school and UGA used the same social medias outside of school, UGA students use more media with the classroom. My high school recently made the switch to allowing computers in class about three years ago. Many of the teachers in my high school were very skeptical of using media in class since they were not used to it. Some teachers still required notes to be handwritten and did not even allow the use of laptops in class. At UGA, professors use PowerPoints or other notes projected on a screen during class, and then also post these notes online so students can follow along on their own laptops. Almost every student in the class has their laptop out and is taking notes during class.

At my high school, all laptops were equipped with an app called DyKnow, which allowed teachers to view what students had open on their laptop screens. This way the teachers could make sure that students were paying attention and not getting distracted during class. I was surprised at how much more freedom students at UGA have with technology within the classroom, but I guess this freedom comes with getting older. I do not have my teacher watching over me now to make sure that I am not shopping online during class, rather it is not my responsibility. I guess my high school was just a little more old-school than UGA, but I think as the years go on, teachers at my high school will become more accepting of the use of technology in the classroom.

Today, all I really only use email for is school. I have a setting so that whenever someone sends me an email, it also comes in as a text message to my phone because I rarely ever check my email. Most people that need to contact me will either text or call me. This being said, I don’t think schools will ever really switch from emailing. I would just feel very uncomfortable texting my professor because texting seems way more personal than emailing.

I think that many students are so accustomed to new types of communication, like texting, where communication is very brief and to the point that it becomes hard to switch back into writing a long, formal email. It seems so pointless to add all of these other words when really you just want to ask your question and send the email. But, I do understand where professors are coming from when they want emails to be written in a certain way. Just like you would talk to your professor much more formally than you would talk to your best friend, emails and communication should be more formal too.

My school was one of the rare schools that actually taught their students how to properly email a teacher. In 7^th grade, one of my required computer classes actually had a unit on how to properly email teachers. The format I learned was pretty similar to the format given in “How to Email Your Professor”, and it has been ingrained in my mind ever since I learned it. I would probably have no idea how to email a teacher if I had not learned it in this class. I think it is important that students be taught how to properly write an email especially if teachers are expecting it to be written in a certain way.

When I was younger, I used to be obsessed with reading. Every month my mom would have to drive me to the closest Barnes and Noble so that I could buy a few new books. When I finished reading those books, I would set them on my bookshelf and then have to go back to the store for more. I think my mom eventually got tired of driving me to the bookstore so often, so she instead went and bought me a Kindle so that I could just download the books I wanted on this digital device. This seemed so easy and convenient, and I could now read more books without having to worry about when I would be able to go to the bookstore next. But the reading experience on a Kindle was completely different than reading from the actual book. There is something about holding a paper book that makes it so much more special than reading it online. While holding the actual book, I felt more connected to the story that the author had written about. After some time, my love for reading began to dwindle, which I think is due to not only the fact that I was getting older and busier, but also that I didn’t enjoy reading as much on the digital device. Even though I do not read as much today, I still hate having to read anything online. If a teacher assigns a reading of an online article (like the reading for this week), I have to print it out and read it from the printed copy, which isn’t as convenient. This is one legacy media that I feel I will not be able to let go of. It seems like there are less actual bookstores today because less people are using actual books, and if they are, they just order them online. It is sad to see that something that was such a big part of my childhood is changing so much.

Writing a letter is not as easy as it seems. When I first heard this assignment I expected it to take me about 10-15 minutes to write the letter, but it ended up taking just 15 minutes to figure out how to start the letter. I wrote a letter to my best friend that is going to school in Alabama. Whenever we are together we can never stop talking, but I was surprised at how awkward I felt while writing the letter even though I was writing to one of my best friends. Staring at the blank sheet of paper as the minutes passed by, I had no idea what to write. I felt like I was overthinking everything that I wrote because it felt more permanent when I wrote it by hand. Once I started writing, I sort of felt like I was either talking to myself or overpowering the conversation because there was no response from the other side. I have been so used to sending or saying short messages to people through texts, emails, or phone calls and then immediately receiving a response. Even though I had so much to say and to tell my friend, I just did not know how to put it into words for the letter. Finally, I just decided that I was overthinking myself too much and wrote down everything that I was thinking. Once I finished the letter, I realized that I have no idea what my friend’s address is at school. Sure, we did just move to new addresses for school, but it’s weird to think how we can be best friends with someone yet not know something as basic as their address. I can’t imagine what my friend’s response is going to be when she receives my letter because the only time we really get letters in the mail these days are for “thank you” letters. I definitely underestimated how hard it would be to write a letter.