Media Diet

I am consuming some type of media at all times. In recording my media diet I have seen that only when I am in class, at a party or engaging intpersonally with a friend, I not consuming some kind of media. I do not watch much Television, but when I do it is usually in bulk periods of 3 hours or more. I read only what I am assigned for classes, and that seems to take up infinite amounts of time. I am not a big TV watcher or pleasure reader, but the Internet is where I am consuming the most media. I am constantly hooked up to the Internet. Only when I am sleeping am I not online in some form. I use Facebook and Twitter all too much. I use The Hype Machine sometimes for hours at a time. I follow dozens of music and film blogs. I follow numerous humorous blogs; I follow ski blogs and political blogs. I access practically all of my information online. I receive it much faster online than I can anywhere else. Twitter has become my news. Whatever is trending I look up and it usually is an up to the second update on any situation whether it be international or domestic politics, a tragedy, a musician, a film, an event involving a public figure, or even a humorous quote.

In the process of documenting my Media diet, I realized just how dependent I am on online media and social media. I believe that the immense amount of online media I consume is merely a corollary of the times. I am in every sense of the world a citizen of the digital age. My mind is plugged into cyberspace and I consume and generate online content at all times. I read an article analyzing a segment on the Late Show called “Jaywalking.” In this article the author discussed how today people know less information than ever before, despite the fact that there is more information available at ones fingertips than ever before. The author belittles the youthful citizens of the digital age. Clearly, resent this sentiment. I may not know the dates of important treaty and holidays, which the youth of previous generations could recite. However, I do not need to know such things. While I may be bound to the internet through Internet consumption I am liberated from such monotony via this enslavement to the digital age. For when I plugged my mind into cyberspace I also plugged it into all the information available in cyberspace, making it my brain’s personal external hard drive, with all the information of the Internet waiting to be accessed at a moments notice.