When I first learned I had to take an FYOS I was concerned on what to take. I was overwhelmed with how many options there were and what exactly would suit me best. When I stumbled across the title of the class I was intrigued by the idea of learning about media. I now know so much more about what is categorized as media and how it impacts our lives everyday.
I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to have more face-to-face contact with a professor. The experience was unlike any other class I have taken this semester. Looking back, my favorite part of this class was definitely having the time to discuss everyone’s thoughts and feelings towards the topic of the week. Hearing other individuals feedback made the class that much more rewarding.

After tracking my media usage twice last week, I was fascinated to see if the amount of media I used was just a fluke. I decided to track another weekday but this time on Wednesday, so I could see if it was just my Tuesday/Thursday classes that required so much media. After analyzing the data from Wednesday I know realize that media usage is inevitable in one’s life. Wednesday began around 11 am for me with a quick look to my social media. After checking all of my favorite sites, I headed to Bolton for a quick breakfast before my Anthropology class, where I would be lectured for a straight 50 minutes. Constantly looking at projector will never go out of style I guess. I can bet I will be exposed to this style of teaching for the next four years. After Anthropology, I went hope and watched two episodes of a series on Netflix and had to head over to Interpersonal Communications class. During this class we actually had an activity so I had more one on one personal interaction which gave me a slight break from my media usage. After class I headed home and studied in the Creswell study lounge, reading my geography textbook for roughly two hours, and then watched Netflix for another two hours. This is the rough outline of my Wednesday.

I now wonder if it is college that is exposing me to so much media or if it just the lifestyle of the 21^st century. Looking back on high school, you begin to realize that you were exposed to media for a nonstop eight hours. Going from class to class, having lecture after lecture. To take a break from this media, you would try to sneak a look at your social media. It’s interesting to think that, while in college, I actually have more of an option to cut back on my usage, because I am no longer forced to sit in class for eight hours. The media I consume on a daily basis is because I have trained my brain to no longer be pleased with doing nothing. I have to keep myself preoccupied in some way otherwise who knows what will happen. Whether it be on my way to class or simply sitting in my room. I am never quite doing nothing.

After logging my media usage for two days, I have come to the realization that almost everything I do/use is media. My log was almost completely full, not just from scrolling through my Instagram feed but also from taking notes and attending my lectures.

This log sheet showed me just how relevant media is to everyone’s life. My log began with mw tracking me media usage of my average Tuesday. My Tuesday begins by waking up at 10 in the morning and instantly turning off my alarm and checking my social media. I begin with Instagram, then snapchat, and finally look at my email to make sure I still have class. After checking all of my platforms I once again take to media to text my friend Kelly to go to Bolton to grab some breakfast before class. After breakfast I walk to class and will once again check my social media. Lately I have been trying to not rely on my phone as much while walking to class because our campus is so beautiful and I want to take it all in. Once in class I sit in the second row to see a massive screen with the PowerPoint of physical geography projected. And once again I am faced with media. After an hour and fifteen minutes of constant note writing and staring at a screen I am free to walk back home and scan my social media. I repeat this process two hours later, but during this gap I take the time to relax my brain…with more media. I watch about two episodes of Sex and the City then head back to class. Once I am done with class for the day I go in and out of my phone, texting my friends, searching Facebook, scrolling through Instagram, and sending snapchats. In reality, I never escape media usage. It is a never ending stream of media.

The next day I logged was Saturday. My Saturdays are typically very relaxed to recover from the long week. This Saturday in particular I decided to binge watch an unhealthy amount of Sex and the City. During the weekends I find that I am exposed to even more media, because if I am not cramming for the next week’s tests, I am watching television or scrolling through my phone.

It is mind-blowing to alter your understanding of what you thought media is. Before tracking my media usage, I simply though media was solely what I did on my phone. Now I realize that media is all around us and is almost unavoidable. With the technology and access, we have today, media is a part of everything we do and does not always deserve the negative connotation we give it. The media I exposed to when sitting in lectures is extremely beneficial, making me expand my knowledge and earn a degree. Without media we would not be who we are today.

After googling myself, I was not surprised to see what popped up when searching my name. The first thing to show up, was my Facebook account. This is not concerning for me, because my Facebook is completely private, so the only way someone can see what’s on Facebook is by being my friend. The rest of the links that pop up are all related to my time as a golfer. Previous to college, I golfed for seven years competitively, so there are numerous links to articles and videos of me golfing. I think this is fine to have online, because most of these articles and publications are very well-done and reflect me in a great light. Also, I plan on majoring in finance and entering into the business world, where golf can be a major aspect to finding clients and making deals. The fact that someone can find me through a google search and see that I play golf may in the long run help me out.

It is shocking to see how much information is tied to your name online. I previously had no idea that so much content would pop up when googling my name. It now makes a lot of sense to audit your social media accounts so that it is professional not only for your social life but also for prospective business opportunities. I think now after doing this quick search, I will audit my accounts more thoroughly and go through my friends on platforms like Facebook to make sure only the people I truly know have access to my personal information.

After reading the “Binge Breaker” I was not surprised to see all the negative associations discussed about electronic devices and their massive impact on our daily lives. It is no shocker to almost anyone in my generation that electronic devices are inevitable. Even when it comes to situations that are not related to social media, such as Gmail, we are still notified when there are updates or someone has come in contact with you. I agree with the author, that this behavior may not be healthy and should be reduced. With that being said, it appears almost impossible to reduce electronic activity and no longer binge on our accounts. We get that “high” from the satisfaction of a like and the feeling of recognition. Everything we do is not for ourselves to view, but is so other perceive us as fitting in.

I have most definitely felt manipulated by an app to continue to use it because of the satisfaction it gives you. We as a society have almost been classically conditioned to automatically respond when we are notified.  The idea of not looking at one’s phone for 30 minutes is honestly challenging for most individuals in today’s world. The solution seems as though to cut back on electronic use and limit our social media presence, but that is unrealistic in this day in age. We continually add new platforms that will grab more of our attention. We are spreading ourselves too thin through our electronic use and will eventually have nothing left to give.

I decided to interview my mom to see how social media use changes generationally. Keep in mind, my mom tries to stay up to date with the new social media platforms, and is often very bored at work. During the interview I compared my mom and I’s social media use and found that we are rather similar in this sense. My mom as well as I tend to check our social media throughout the day through our phones, because of the easy access it provides. The main difference between our hourly usage is that I tend to check my phone out of boredom or routine while she checks every once in a while to see what everyone is up to.

Another big difference between my mom and I, is that all of her social media platforms are on private. When it comes to my Instagram I keep it on public, because I feel I have nothing to hide. Also on Instagram I follow individuals I do not know, because they seem interesting, like models and actresses for example. My mom strictly follows her friends and coworkers accounts, making her following much slimmer.

When it comes to keeping her social media presentable, my mom has no concern about her employers seeing what she posts because she only posts things of her family or vacations. Nothing can be deemed inappropriate. With my generation there comes more concern, because we tend to not think about the repercussions of posting certain things to a platform that is so public and permanent. As time goes on, both my mom and I have progressively added new platforms of social media to our lives, but my mom tends to be a few steps behind me. This is because I will show her what is “cool and hip” and she will try to jump on the bandwagon, staying up to date with the social media world. My dad on the other hand is completely opposite, and the most outdated social media user you will ever meet.

In this generation, it is rare to meet an individual who does not interact with others through social media. Social media has grown to be a huge part of my life and impact how I behave. My first form of social media, like many others, was the creation of my Facebook account. I created my Facebook account when I was in sixth grade, not because I thought I needed one or really even wanted one, but because everyone in my school had one and I thought I should keep up on the trends. From this point on social media has impacted my life tremendously.

Looking back on my early posts of Facebook I cringe. Now I use Facebook as a more professional platform. I typically only upload photos as memories and avoid having statuses. Back in middle school, I thought it was normal to update my friends on the smallest things of my daily life. After middle school Facebook basically died. I did not log onto my account for approximately 4 years because newer and more exciting social media platforms arrived. There was a revival for Facebook for me around my senior year of high school because I had to present myself in a normal way, and not have someone look me up and only see my 7^th grade self. Now in college, I use Facebook regularly to keep updated on important things in my life like sorority news.

Other platforms of social media that have strongly impacted my life include Instagram and snapchat. The arrival of Instagram was a game changer. Facebook was great for the photos, but I had no desire to hear about individuals’ statuses. Instagram took away the importance of a status and made the entire platform revolve around the photos. Instagram to this day is very relevant to my life, because you can tailor your photo to how you want people to see you. It is honestly a very fake way of representing yourself.

Snapchat is the most informal form of my social media. In the beginning snapchat was used to communicate small things or simply funny situations to your friends. I still do this occasionally, but now the majority of the time I am sending mindless photos of my face to keep my “streak” with people going. Snapchat for me is almost a job because I have to remember to send the same photo to the same people every day.

A small quirk or difference about my social media use compared to others, is that I do not have a twitter account and never have. I find twitter to be pointless because it simply taking away everything I loved about Facebook and Instagram and leaving me with only status updates that I do not care about.

The media ecology of the University of Georgia is not substantially different from the technology used and seen throughout my high school. While in high school, we used similar if not the exact same forms of technology to learn and study. Because of these few changes, it has been an easy transition from high school to college.

Specifically, in high school we mainly used PowerPoint as our lecture style for teaching. In almost every class I attend this semester, my professor lectures using a PowerPoint and puts the notes online for the students to view later at their discretion. This technology is familiar to me and allows me to stick to the routine of how I learned in high school. Personally, lecture style is my favorite way to learn. Because my professors use this medium to communicate the information for their class I am benefited, and learn to my full abilities.

A discrepancy between college and high school media ecology is the lack of remind101 at UGA. In high school this form of technology was used to remind students of assignments or send quick messages from the teachers to the students. Remind101 is not present at UGA, because we are now college students and should be capable of remembering our assignments. This change in media ecology is beneficial because it teaches college students the importance of self-reliance and to be on top of their assignments. Overall, there are only a few changes seen in media ecology from my high school to college which makes the transition that much easier.

Prior to college, email was not a large part of my life. If I had a question to ask my teacher in high school it could most likely wait until the next day where I would see them in class. Now that I only see my professors three times maximum per week I have begun to utilize email more often. Email in college serves as the only form of communication between professors and students  which makes it so important to not offend your professors while emailing them. While emailing your professor one needs to write the way they would talk to their professor in person.

The article was not lying when it stated that our generation has simply never been taught how to format emails. Whenever I have to write an email I stick to my same format that I have grown to be comfortable with. After reading this article I have come to the realization that I am not half bad at writing emails, but most definitely not perfect. I now know that I have to add details about which class I am in and at what time, which makes sense considering how many students my professor may have. I think to better ones email writing they should put themselves in the shoes of the individual they are emailing.

Professors may have different views of emailing than students do. I think this has to do more with the age gap than anything else. Professors look at email as a much more professional form of communication while students do not necessarily understand the formality of email. By being taught the proper formatting of emailing, students will become more efficient at emailing as well as eliminate the opportunity to offend their professor, which is the worst case scenario.

In my house, music is a prevalent thing. We are constantly playing music in the background at any event because it can help set a mood. Nowadays, it is most common to hear of people using their phones to access their music libraries through Spotify, pandora, or apple music. It is crazy to think of how obsolete things like CD’s and cassette players have become. This is especially fascinating to my family, because my grandfather was the owner of a record label, Intersound. He would produce countless albums that were placed on CD’s and sold around the US. He sold this company in the late 90’s right as the music industry began to turn into a digital market.
With the generation today, CD’s have become residual media that are rarely seen due to the immense access people have to any and every song possible through their phones. No one feels the need to spend money on a complete album when they can simply buy a single song a download it on Itunes. Even simpler is the notion of Spotify. You simply pay ten dollars a month to almost unlimited access to all music. Although we have access to such vast amounts of music there’s no feeling quite like being able to pop in a CD to your car and skip around the album of your favorite artist with the windows down. These are the moments I have the most memories of not the moments I plug in my phone to the aux. In reality the digitalization of music is the same situation as the digitalization of books. It is all personal preference, but how accessible something is to someone definitely impacts how often it is used.