These media critics always seem to have something negative to say about the effects of television or the Internet. And to me it seems like just a bunch of hot air. Nicholas Carr is no different. He seems to think that his use of the search engine Google has caused him to think and focus differently. Instead of submerging himself into the world of literature he is merely skimming across hyperlinks finding no real substance.
I remember the first time I heard about Google. My dad came up from his office in the basement and told us all about this really awesome new search engine. From there on out I always used Google and never Yahoo! or MSN. Google became my one and only.
It has helped me with many assignments as a student. It helped me expand my knowledge on simple things like vocabulary. Google even helped me become well versed in certain celebrity’s lives. Google revolutionized the Internet experience, honing research into a neat little package for us to pick and choose from.
Carr argues that this plethora of information and the ease of its access is a negative. I would argue its nothing but positive. We used to have to comb through book after book, and encyclopedia after dictionary to acquire information. This is not the case anymore. At the simple click of a button the world is ours. What could be greater than that?
Instead of having to memorize silly facts, we can fill our minds with other things, more important things. Who cares about knowing the state capitol of North Dakota? You can fill that space with knowledge that isn’t as easily attainable through a search engine, like a critical formula used in your profession, or something as simple as Grandma Jo’s famous apple pie recipe.
The possibilities are endless when information is so readily available. I’d say we’ve barely even tapped into the positives that could come from something so revolutionary. And it continues to expand. We can carry the Internet around in our pockets, for goodness sakes! We’re not stupider, we’re more strategic. We’re freeing up our minds, and depending more on artificial intelligence. Some might say that is bad. I say it’s strategic. I say anything that makes our lives easier is better. When our lives have become a sprinting marathon, anything that brings some sort of relief, such as the Internet, such as Google, it is always welcome.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Welcome to Logo Land
If you were gonna ask me what brands represent my life I would undoubtedly list my top three as Gap, Apple, and Toyota. I am a loyal customer of all three brands until the bitter end. I follow them more closely than any religion. These brands represent so much to me. They represent the image I want to project to other people. Gap stands for classic fashions and reasonable prices (but not cheap quality). Apple symbolizes innovation, youth, hip-ness, and expensive products. Toyota epitomizes quality, good MPG, and a leader in the hybrid movement.
They haven’t always represented this to me. I used to be anti-Macs, but, after the iPod revolution, and my dad constantly reiterating to me: “We’re creative people! Apple computers are for creative people,” I decided to convert. I want to be creative. I want people to think I have innovation. Macs personify liberal in my mind. Well, I’m liberal, too! People must understand all this when they see me pull out my MacBookPro and start to hammer away.
I had to be made a believer out of Toyota, too. When they came out with that Prius line I was sold. Even though I don’t own a Prius, they’re kind of pricy, that is my dream car. In fact, I was recently purchasing my first car, and one of my friends told me the kind of car she pictured me driving: a Prius! Is there a better compliment? Maybe through the other products that I use and identify with I gave off the Toyota vibe. I must be doing something right.
The Gap snatched me up as a customer long ago. My dream summer job to work at that magical company finally came true this past summer! While going behind their Wizard of Oz-like curtain the magic wore off a little, but I am more of a walking advertisement for Gap than ever before. Mostly in part because of that pesky 50% employee discount, which is where most of my paychecks went. To be a successful employee, to really sell the brand, you have to believe in it, or be a really good actor. My soul belongs to Gap. Therefore, I was a successful employee. Even if one season or two doesn’t fit my fancy, you can bet I’ll still come scourging back when the new lines come out. It’s because I believe. And, I believe because my body, soul and mind have been branded.
Naomi Klein, author of No Logo, would cringe at everything I have just said above. The media critic is passionately in opposition with logos, and the idea of branding our entire lives. Naomi believes that we don’t wear the brand anymore but that the brand wears us. And she’s right. We do not buy the product; we buy the products’ brand. What will a stranger think of you when they see you wearing that Gap logo-ed sweatshirt?
I have one boy-crazy friend, who always makes inferences about random guys. She tries to figure out if the two of them would be compatible. She’ll compare them to her Colorado-granola standard. “Well, he had a Northface fleece on, so we’re soul mates,” or “Was that a Camlbak water bottle he just drank from? It’s true love!” You and I both do this, too, we can’t help it. Most of us aren’t as outright about it as my friend here. But, someday we will choose our significant others on what brands they’re representing, because we will inevitably be associated with those as well. Better choose wisely, I guess.
Is Naomi Klein’s no logo any better though? I don’t know. What sort of refuge does no logo offer as opposed to Logo Land. Here I am at Shades of Brown, the no logo, un-franchised coffee shop, feeling very good about myself for not selling what little bit of my soul I still have left to that coffee giant, Starbucks. But my soy chai latte costs more here. It’s farther away from campus, too. And, you know that sacred place, the toilet? It’s got Riverside Nissan ads and the like plastered on the wall. I thought I was being different. I thought I was escaping Logo Land. Nope. Not possible. Incessant advertising is just unavoidable. Perpetual branding happens even while your sitting in the john. Naomi Klein’s no logo will turn into a brand someday, too. Branding moments, branding our lives, branding the world has become the most lucrative business. You think you can avoid it? I’d like to see you try.
They haven’t always represented this to me. I used to be anti-Macs, but, after the iPod revolution, and my dad constantly reiterating to me: “We’re creative people! Apple computers are for creative people,” I decided to convert. I want to be creative. I want people to think I have innovation. Macs personify liberal in my mind. Well, I’m liberal, too! People must understand all this when they see me pull out my MacBookPro and start to hammer away.
I had to be made a believer out of Toyota, too. When they came out with that Prius line I was sold. Even though I don’t own a Prius, they’re kind of pricy, that is my dream car. In fact, I was recently purchasing my first car, and one of my friends told me the kind of car she pictured me driving: a Prius! Is there a better compliment? Maybe through the other products that I use and identify with I gave off the Toyota vibe. I must be doing something right.
The Gap snatched me up as a customer long ago. My dream summer job to work at that magical company finally came true this past summer! While going behind their Wizard of Oz-like curtain the magic wore off a little, but I am more of a walking advertisement for Gap than ever before. Mostly in part because of that pesky 50% employee discount, which is where most of my paychecks went. To be a successful employee, to really sell the brand, you have to believe in it, or be a really good actor. My soul belongs to Gap. Therefore, I was a successful employee. Even if one season or two doesn’t fit my fancy, you can bet I’ll still come scourging back when the new lines come out. It’s because I believe. And, I believe because my body, soul and mind have been branded.
Naomi Klein, author of No Logo, would cringe at everything I have just said above. The media critic is passionately in opposition with logos, and the idea of branding our entire lives. Naomi believes that we don’t wear the brand anymore but that the brand wears us. And she’s right. We do not buy the product; we buy the products’ brand. What will a stranger think of you when they see you wearing that Gap logo-ed sweatshirt?
I have one boy-crazy friend, who always makes inferences about random guys. She tries to figure out if the two of them would be compatible. She’ll compare them to her Colorado-granola standard. “Well, he had a Northface fleece on, so we’re soul mates,” or “Was that a Camlbak water bottle he just drank from? It’s true love!” You and I both do this, too, we can’t help it. Most of us aren’t as outright about it as my friend here. But, someday we will choose our significant others on what brands they’re representing, because we will inevitably be associated with those as well. Better choose wisely, I guess.
Is Naomi Klein’s no logo any better though? I don’t know. What sort of refuge does no logo offer as opposed to Logo Land. Here I am at Shades of Brown, the no logo, un-franchised coffee shop, feeling very good about myself for not selling what little bit of my soul I still have left to that coffee giant, Starbucks. But my soy chai latte costs more here. It’s farther away from campus, too. And, you know that sacred place, the toilet? It’s got Riverside Nissan ads and the like plastered on the wall. I thought I was being different. I thought I was escaping Logo Land. Nope. Not possible. Incessant advertising is just unavoidable. Perpetual branding happens even while your sitting in the john. Naomi Klein’s no logo will turn into a brand someday, too. Branding moments, branding our lives, branding the world has become the most lucrative business. You think you can avoid it? I’d like to see you try.
The Dreamwork of Culture
Do you ever picture your life through a camera lens? I do. A lot. I often play director in my own life, picturing how one scene or another from my daily routine would look in a movie, or how the droplets of rain falling down the car window would pull on the heart strings of a viewer watching a poignant music video. I do this quite regularly, and partly I do it because the media has taught me that my life should resemble what I see on television. If we didn’t believe it could happen would we be as apt to watch?
Thomas De Zengotita, a media critic, believes that there is a perpetual “numbing” of our minds. This happens through an overload of stimulation, “a vast goo of meaningless stimulation” are his words to be exact. De Zengotita writes specifically about emotions and real life experiences being exploited by media: “That’s why, in these shows through which the celebrated teach the rest of us how to be like them, the moments of heartfelt encounter that make it all worthwhile are stolen in the corridors of power”(39). I must ask, why do our lives have to mimic what we see on television? If our true life diverges in any sort of way, why are we so disappointed? Why do these clichés that we are taught bring value and satisfaction?
Look at some of the most popular shows on television ever, Friends and Seinfeld. The big appeal of Seinfeld was that it was a show about nothing. And now, everyday, we compare moments in our life to a Seinfeld episode, I know I do. Or, when the first season of The O.C. came out every other episode there was a big lavish party in which a bloody fight would always break out. They deemed it the primetime soap opera. It was fresh. Now, there are about ten shows that could fit that genre and they get good ratings, too; Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill or the new 90210. These primetime soap operas aren’t as simplistic as Friends or Seinfeld were, but neither is our society.
We are in the deepest economic slump since The Great Depression. Our favorite television characters have gotten a raise in income, and America seems to think they have, too. Daily we spend more than we make, but if we see our favorite character buying whatever she wants, and always wearing the latest fashion, we should be able to have the same, right?
This is where Thomas de Zengotita’s ideas come into play, our inability to distinguish real from television. He uses the example of the wolf. Seeing a wolf in the wild would completely boggle our mind because it is neither in the television screen nor in a cage. I have this same type of distinguishing problem. A few of weeks ago I met an Irish guy. He was speaking to me about one thing or another and within the first few minutes of becoming his acquaintance I had already mimicked his accent more than once by simply repeating his own words in his accent. I am always looking to brush up on my Irish accent, but I’m so used to my encounters with such creatures through the TV! It didn’t click in my brain that this encounter was real, and not just some BBC show, until he paused and looked at me with a perturbed expression.
In the past four years of my life I feel as though I have put on the persona of the happy-go-lucky person. It is how I would like to be remembered. So, I smile and try to make others feel my optimism, which is genuine, for the most part. Fake it till you make it, right? But, when I really sit down and think about my life it’s not as happy as I pretend it is everyday. When I was walking across my campus recently I came to the conclusion that part of my happiness stems from living in a fantasy world.
When I am alone, I am very internal, and create stories and conversations that never come to pass. Most of them are so ridiculously beyond cliché. You know what I mean. I day dreaming about the boy I like waiting on my door step with flowers ready to tell me he is sorry, that sorta thing. I did not come up with this scenario on my own. I must have seen it on TV once. Now I am imagining it in my head like I was watching television.
I often fall asleep to my own medley of soap opera situations that have never occurred in my life. As I have become older they have become less and less extravagant and outlandish, because really, what are the chances I’ll ever meet Prince William, let alone have him fall in love with me? Maybe my tolerance for such lavishness just died down, because now mundane encounters put me to sleep just fine. Why should my life feel any happier than someone else’s just because I live in a fantasy world?
Thomas de Zengotita makes it clear that he does not believe escaping this numbing of the mind phenomena is possible. We breathe, eat, drink, and live our media. As humans, when we are over exposed to something, and de Zengotita uses 9/11 as an example, our brain processes it, yet, over time the same images will look like the back of your hand. It will evoke a small fraction of the emotion you felt when that idea was first presented to you.
After seeing the planes hit the World Trade Centers the hundredth time they simply became pixels. This must be a defense mechanism evolved by our body. Each viewing of 9/11 got more and more tolerable. To feel the same pain you felt every time you saw footage of that late summer day would be too emotionally draining, hence your body created a coping mechanism so your pain would lessen over time. But, where does the line become drawn between coping mechanism and numbing? When do you cross over from feeling sorrow to feeling annoyance?
I know many people feel perturbed when the media use 9/11 in movies and television shows to simply evoke that emotion we first felt in 2001. This year, when 9/11 came around, it felt as though the world had forgotten about it. None of my professors brought it up in class and there was no nation wide moment of silence. Maybe seven years is our cut off point these days. Have we simply been so overexposed that it became too cliché to call attention to it on its own anniversary? Or are we just too numb to care?
“The Numbing of the American Mind” is alive and well, but is it really all that bad? Most likely the majority of Americans are not intellectual enough or conscious enough of such a phenomena. They are too preoccupied with working or finding a sitter for the kids. No one sits and thinks about the side dish of media they’re fed each morning alongside their bacon and eggs. When the majority of our country is consumed with putting food on the table, it is so easy for the mass media to take control and have free reign over our society. What we think and how we act is a direct reflection of how we’ve been told we should do just that.
Thomas De Zengotita, a media critic, believes that there is a perpetual “numbing” of our minds. This happens through an overload of stimulation, “a vast goo of meaningless stimulation” are his words to be exact. De Zengotita writes specifically about emotions and real life experiences being exploited by media: “That’s why, in these shows through which the celebrated teach the rest of us how to be like them, the moments of heartfelt encounter that make it all worthwhile are stolen in the corridors of power”(39). I must ask, why do our lives have to mimic what we see on television? If our true life diverges in any sort of way, why are we so disappointed? Why do these clichés that we are taught bring value and satisfaction?
Look at some of the most popular shows on television ever, Friends and Seinfeld. The big appeal of Seinfeld was that it was a show about nothing. And now, everyday, we compare moments in our life to a Seinfeld episode, I know I do. Or, when the first season of The O.C. came out every other episode there was a big lavish party in which a bloody fight would always break out. They deemed it the primetime soap opera. It was fresh. Now, there are about ten shows that could fit that genre and they get good ratings, too; Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill or the new 90210. These primetime soap operas aren’t as simplistic as Friends or Seinfeld were, but neither is our society.
We are in the deepest economic slump since The Great Depression. Our favorite television characters have gotten a raise in income, and America seems to think they have, too. Daily we spend more than we make, but if we see our favorite character buying whatever she wants, and always wearing the latest fashion, we should be able to have the same, right?
This is where Thomas de Zengotita’s ideas come into play, our inability to distinguish real from television. He uses the example of the wolf. Seeing a wolf in the wild would completely boggle our mind because it is neither in the television screen nor in a cage. I have this same type of distinguishing problem. A few of weeks ago I met an Irish guy. He was speaking to me about one thing or another and within the first few minutes of becoming his acquaintance I had already mimicked his accent more than once by simply repeating his own words in his accent. I am always looking to brush up on my Irish accent, but I’m so used to my encounters with such creatures through the TV! It didn’t click in my brain that this encounter was real, and not just some BBC show, until he paused and looked at me with a perturbed expression.
In the past four years of my life I feel as though I have put on the persona of the happy-go-lucky person. It is how I would like to be remembered. So, I smile and try to make others feel my optimism, which is genuine, for the most part. Fake it till you make it, right? But, when I really sit down and think about my life it’s not as happy as I pretend it is everyday. When I was walking across my campus recently I came to the conclusion that part of my happiness stems from living in a fantasy world.
When I am alone, I am very internal, and create stories and conversations that never come to pass. Most of them are so ridiculously beyond cliché. You know what I mean. I day dreaming about the boy I like waiting on my door step with flowers ready to tell me he is sorry, that sorta thing. I did not come up with this scenario on my own. I must have seen it on TV once. Now I am imagining it in my head like I was watching television.
I often fall asleep to my own medley of soap opera situations that have never occurred in my life. As I have become older they have become less and less extravagant and outlandish, because really, what are the chances I’ll ever meet Prince William, let alone have him fall in love with me? Maybe my tolerance for such lavishness just died down, because now mundane encounters put me to sleep just fine. Why should my life feel any happier than someone else’s just because I live in a fantasy world?
Thomas de Zengotita makes it clear that he does not believe escaping this numbing of the mind phenomena is possible. We breathe, eat, drink, and live our media. As humans, when we are over exposed to something, and de Zengotita uses 9/11 as an example, our brain processes it, yet, over time the same images will look like the back of your hand. It will evoke a small fraction of the emotion you felt when that idea was first presented to you.
After seeing the planes hit the World Trade Centers the hundredth time they simply became pixels. This must be a defense mechanism evolved by our body. Each viewing of 9/11 got more and more tolerable. To feel the same pain you felt every time you saw footage of that late summer day would be too emotionally draining, hence your body created a coping mechanism so your pain would lessen over time. But, where does the line become drawn between coping mechanism and numbing? When do you cross over from feeling sorrow to feeling annoyance?
I know many people feel perturbed when the media use 9/11 in movies and television shows to simply evoke that emotion we first felt in 2001. This year, when 9/11 came around, it felt as though the world had forgotten about it. None of my professors brought it up in class and there was no nation wide moment of silence. Maybe seven years is our cut off point these days. Have we simply been so overexposed that it became too cliché to call attention to it on its own anniversary? Or are we just too numb to care?
“The Numbing of the American Mind” is alive and well, but is it really all that bad? Most likely the majority of Americans are not intellectual enough or conscious enough of such a phenomena. They are too preoccupied with working or finding a sitter for the kids. No one sits and thinks about the side dish of media they’re fed each morning alongside their bacon and eggs. When the majority of our country is consumed with putting food on the table, it is so easy for the mass media to take control and have free reign over our society. What we think and how we act is a direct reflection of how we’ve been told we should do just that.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Media Free Day
For the entire day of October the second I told everyone about my media-free duties. I broadcasted my assignment to all of my suitemates, friends, classmates and co-workers. Each friend had a similar disgusted reaction and everyone always inquired why. When I listed off all the forms of media I was to refrain from, the Internet and text messaging seemed to be the most hideous in the eyes of my friends. I tried to mention my media free day as often as I could to anyone. It offered something to talk about, as well as a distraction from missing all my electronics. I discovered through this experiment that it's not my average day-to-day activities which constantly revolve around media, just, instead, media is so completely unavoidable.
I awoke on October second with an ominous feeling about how the day would turn out. In fact, I was quite dreading it, wondering if I would be able to survive. Maybe it was the horror stories we’d heard in class that made me so nervous, or my believed dependence on media, but I was scared I would crack. The academic portion of my day was a breeze. I made a point of noticing whether there were certain media used in any of my classes, there were not. I made it to 11:30 a.m. until I had the first desire to use the Internet. It happened when I arrived at my work-study job. We often do not have a lot of work to do, and my boss will let us use a computer and the Internet. My boss leaves to go to class at 12:30 p.m. and I man the desk. Her desk has a computer in which I always play solitaire and use facebook, but all of a sudden this was not an option. Staring at the screen saver did not help, so I decided to busy myself. In fact, this media free business helped make me be more productive. I ended up reading the majority of A Doll’s House for my dramatic literature class. Every once in a while though, when the play lagged I would look longingly at the computer and wish I had the option of going online.
On Thursdays, after my communications class, I do not usually retreat back to my job in CSAS, but today, not knowing what else I could do with my time, I went back to chat with my coworkers. I did notice that throughout my media free day, I depended heavily on my human interaction to get me through. Nothing else would have been able to stimulate me or distract me as effectively. Since coming to college television has not been an important part of my daily routine. I tend to watch television in great quantities when I go home to my parent’s house, or sometimes on the weekends. Inevitably cutting television from my routine was not hard, but I did feel bad having to ask my roommate to switch off the television when I came back from work. In high school, if I had downtime, I usually watched television, now I use it as naptime, and so I chose to use part of my afternoon to do just that.
The evening of my media free is where the lines start to blur and I was not sure what was breaking the rules. I figured if I was trying to realistically live my day-to-day life I should not limit myself or become a hermit. I chose my media free day coincidentally the same night as the homecoming bonfire. I decided to go to the fire, but there was one medium there that was unavoidable, music. TU hired a DJ to play music throughout, and I felt entirely guilty the whole time! But I thought that maybe this was all a part of the experiment, to realize how dependent we are upon media. Then on top of that, I decided to attend a dance party put on by the Newman Center, since so many of my friends are involved in their activities. The medium provided there was of course music, again, but it was more about the social interaction complimented by the music.
There were some other line blur-ers on the second of October. I own an Apple computer, and had recently been having some difficulties with the battery and charger. I was supposed to return my old battery and charger to the Apple people, but there was confusion on return labels and such. So I had to call Apple three separate times, as well as call DHL twice about picking up my packages. I spent a total of an hour working on getting this accomplished. I never once had to turn on my computer, but using the phone for that long did feel like some rule breaking. But, it was necessary for me to return those packages to Apple, otherwise they would have fined me. So, just another example of how these media are just part of the fabric of our lives.
Overall, the day was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be. In the evening after the bonfire and the dance party I finished up homework and went to bed around one a.m. Although, I was very tempted when the clock struck midnight to go on and use the Internet, but I decided against that entirely. Turns out the next day when I finally broke my media fast nothing had even happened on facebook, and the hype of returning to my beloved networking site was void of any satisfaction. This was a really neat experience, and I was proud I was able to accomplish it to a certain extent. I know that it would have been much more difficult had I not had all those activities in the evening. I would have sat at home twiddling my thumbs, and bugging my sorority sisters out of boredom. No media for a day was easier than I thought, but I sometimes imagine how no media for a week or a month would feel. An experiment of that magnitude would most likely affect my actions for weeks or months afterwards. But, I don’t think I’m willing to find out!
I awoke on October second with an ominous feeling about how the day would turn out. In fact, I was quite dreading it, wondering if I would be able to survive. Maybe it was the horror stories we’d heard in class that made me so nervous, or my believed dependence on media, but I was scared I would crack. The academic portion of my day was a breeze. I made a point of noticing whether there were certain media used in any of my classes, there were not. I made it to 11:30 a.m. until I had the first desire to use the Internet. It happened when I arrived at my work-study job. We often do not have a lot of work to do, and my boss will let us use a computer and the Internet. My boss leaves to go to class at 12:30 p.m. and I man the desk. Her desk has a computer in which I always play solitaire and use facebook, but all of a sudden this was not an option. Staring at the screen saver did not help, so I decided to busy myself. In fact, this media free business helped make me be more productive. I ended up reading the majority of A Doll’s House for my dramatic literature class. Every once in a while though, when the play lagged I would look longingly at the computer and wish I had the option of going online.
On Thursdays, after my communications class, I do not usually retreat back to my job in CSAS, but today, not knowing what else I could do with my time, I went back to chat with my coworkers. I did notice that throughout my media free day, I depended heavily on my human interaction to get me through. Nothing else would have been able to stimulate me or distract me as effectively. Since coming to college television has not been an important part of my daily routine. I tend to watch television in great quantities when I go home to my parent’s house, or sometimes on the weekends. Inevitably cutting television from my routine was not hard, but I did feel bad having to ask my roommate to switch off the television when I came back from work. In high school, if I had downtime, I usually watched television, now I use it as naptime, and so I chose to use part of my afternoon to do just that.
The evening of my media free is where the lines start to blur and I was not sure what was breaking the rules. I figured if I was trying to realistically live my day-to-day life I should not limit myself or become a hermit. I chose my media free day coincidentally the same night as the homecoming bonfire. I decided to go to the fire, but there was one medium there that was unavoidable, music. TU hired a DJ to play music throughout, and I felt entirely guilty the whole time! But I thought that maybe this was all a part of the experiment, to realize how dependent we are upon media. Then on top of that, I decided to attend a dance party put on by the Newman Center, since so many of my friends are involved in their activities. The medium provided there was of course music, again, but it was more about the social interaction complimented by the music.
There were some other line blur-ers on the second of October. I own an Apple computer, and had recently been having some difficulties with the battery and charger. I was supposed to return my old battery and charger to the Apple people, but there was confusion on return labels and such. So I had to call Apple three separate times, as well as call DHL twice about picking up my packages. I spent a total of an hour working on getting this accomplished. I never once had to turn on my computer, but using the phone for that long did feel like some rule breaking. But, it was necessary for me to return those packages to Apple, otherwise they would have fined me. So, just another example of how these media are just part of the fabric of our lives.
Overall, the day was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be. In the evening after the bonfire and the dance party I finished up homework and went to bed around one a.m. Although, I was very tempted when the clock struck midnight to go on and use the Internet, but I decided against that entirely. Turns out the next day when I finally broke my media fast nothing had even happened on facebook, and the hype of returning to my beloved networking site was void of any satisfaction. This was a really neat experience, and I was proud I was able to accomplish it to a certain extent. I know that it would have been much more difficult had I not had all those activities in the evening. I would have sat at home twiddling my thumbs, and bugging my sorority sisters out of boredom. No media for a day was easier than I thought, but I sometimes imagine how no media for a week or a month would feel. An experiment of that magnitude would most likely affect my actions for weeks or months afterwards. But, I don’t think I’m willing to find out!
Media Autobiography
My fifth birthday party was themed Beauty and the Beast, just like the classic Disney movie. I mostly remember the theme, which was tangible through little waxy paper cups and plates with scenes from the movie plastered on the outside. My other faint memory of that day, is of a plastic mirror with a button that, when provoked, would twinkle magical noises from the movie. Nothing could have been more perfect, it was my favorite movie, along with the other slew of Disney princess cartoons. But that’s how my life was as a child, my media interests spilled into all aspects of my life.
The timeline as a child is a little fuzzy, but I never felt restricted by my parents. I grew up knowing other kids who weren’t allowed to watch TV on the weekdays, or they didn’t have cable. To those children, I always felt superior. I could chat up the best of them with my knowledge of television shows that were current for my peers and I at any age. Whether it was trash talking Barney in kindergarten, which I was mostly lying through my teeth about because I still had full intentions of going home afterwards, sitting on the carpet and eating my apple slices while singing along with all his catchy tunes. Or, could discussing how crazy and childish “Blues Clues” was with my entire fourth grade class as we put up our chairs on our desks and prepared to go home for the evening. I’ve always made television a priority in my life, but nothing that completely controlled it either. My tastes changed through the years, but nickelodeon was constantly a staple in my media diet. When I was clever enough to convince my mom of some false ailment, or she was generous enough to offer me a mental health day I would lay in my parents bed, snuggled under the covers watching television. I caught all the episodes of “Little Bear”, “Franklin”, and “Gullah Gullah Island”.
As I became older my preferences graduated to shows like “The Golden Girls” and “Designing Women” on Lifetime. And I definitely broke into the MTV scene before my average classmate because I had an older sister by four years, who would insist on watching Real World, much to my dismay. Eventually I became an addict myself. Television media served as a classroom as well. I learned many things about those mysterious young adults on MTV who seemed so perfect and mature and cool. They embodied what I wanted to become.
While television was the most important form of media while I grew up, the computer was also very significant to my family and I. We have had a computer for as long as I can remember. Some of my memories with our giant box of technology include me in diapers. I played some computer games, but it wasn’t till I was around 12 that I got sucked into the phenomenon of The Sims. It is a simulator game in which you create one sim, or a family of sims. I played insistently, and probably to an extent that was harmful to the development of other extra curricular activities. This sims phase simmered down some, but lasted throughout high school.
Books have probably always been on the back burner in my life. It took me a while to actually get strong at reading. There is one memory I have of my grandmother sending Hooked on Phonics for me in the second grade because I still had not grasped the concept of reading. My mother promptly sent them back, either more for the fear of being indebted to her own mother or from embarrassment. Regardless, I did learn to read! And today, I enjoy it greatly. I know my mother’s favorite child hood memories of her and I include that twilight before bed, when she would read me the classics, like the Bernstein Bears, or Babar, or Where the Sidewalk Ends.
Today, media dictates a lot of my day-to-day activities. I incessantly check facebook, and e-mail. I also get all of my news from the internet. I frequent the blog of Perez Hilton, which satiates my need for celebrity gossip. I am also an avid reader of the blog Post Secret. The creator of that site puts up new secrets every Sunday that people send in on postcards from all over the country every week. I sit on the edge of my seat in anticipation for Sunday to come. Television is important, and was very much so throughout high school. But since I have been in college, television has taken the back seat. It used to be my favorite form of stimulation, but I have moved on to human interaction, which in turn has made me like myself more. Although, when I am at home in Chicago, I am much more liable to sit mindlessly in front of the television until the cows come home. I am, however, very thankful for inventions such as Tivo and DVR, which has made the media of television much more enjoyable. I have made a subconscious pact with myself to not let media dictate my entire life, but as technology advances and our world becomes smaller and smaller through communication devices, such as the internet, I foresee that pact becoming very difficult to maintain.
The timeline as a child is a little fuzzy, but I never felt restricted by my parents. I grew up knowing other kids who weren’t allowed to watch TV on the weekdays, or they didn’t have cable. To those children, I always felt superior. I could chat up the best of them with my knowledge of television shows that were current for my peers and I at any age. Whether it was trash talking Barney in kindergarten, which I was mostly lying through my teeth about because I still had full intentions of going home afterwards, sitting on the carpet and eating my apple slices while singing along with all his catchy tunes. Or, could discussing how crazy and childish “Blues Clues” was with my entire fourth grade class as we put up our chairs on our desks and prepared to go home for the evening. I’ve always made television a priority in my life, but nothing that completely controlled it either. My tastes changed through the years, but nickelodeon was constantly a staple in my media diet. When I was clever enough to convince my mom of some false ailment, or she was generous enough to offer me a mental health day I would lay in my parents bed, snuggled under the covers watching television. I caught all the episodes of “Little Bear”, “Franklin”, and “Gullah Gullah Island”.
As I became older my preferences graduated to shows like “The Golden Girls” and “Designing Women” on Lifetime. And I definitely broke into the MTV scene before my average classmate because I had an older sister by four years, who would insist on watching Real World, much to my dismay. Eventually I became an addict myself. Television media served as a classroom as well. I learned many things about those mysterious young adults on MTV who seemed so perfect and mature and cool. They embodied what I wanted to become.
While television was the most important form of media while I grew up, the computer was also very significant to my family and I. We have had a computer for as long as I can remember. Some of my memories with our giant box of technology include me in diapers. I played some computer games, but it wasn’t till I was around 12 that I got sucked into the phenomenon of The Sims. It is a simulator game in which you create one sim, or a family of sims. I played insistently, and probably to an extent that was harmful to the development of other extra curricular activities. This sims phase simmered down some, but lasted throughout high school.
Books have probably always been on the back burner in my life. It took me a while to actually get strong at reading. There is one memory I have of my grandmother sending Hooked on Phonics for me in the second grade because I still had not grasped the concept of reading. My mother promptly sent them back, either more for the fear of being indebted to her own mother or from embarrassment. Regardless, I did learn to read! And today, I enjoy it greatly. I know my mother’s favorite child hood memories of her and I include that twilight before bed, when she would read me the classics, like the Bernstein Bears, or Babar, or Where the Sidewalk Ends.
Today, media dictates a lot of my day-to-day activities. I incessantly check facebook, and e-mail. I also get all of my news from the internet. I frequent the blog of Perez Hilton, which satiates my need for celebrity gossip. I am also an avid reader of the blog Post Secret. The creator of that site puts up new secrets every Sunday that people send in on postcards from all over the country every week. I sit on the edge of my seat in anticipation for Sunday to come. Television is important, and was very much so throughout high school. But since I have been in college, television has taken the back seat. It used to be my favorite form of stimulation, but I have moved on to human interaction, which in turn has made me like myself more. Although, when I am at home in Chicago, I am much more liable to sit mindlessly in front of the television until the cows come home. I am, however, very thankful for inventions such as Tivo and DVR, which has made the media of television much more enjoyable. I have made a subconscious pact with myself to not let media dictate my entire life, but as technology advances and our world becomes smaller and smaller through communication devices, such as the internet, I foresee that pact becoming very difficult to maintain.
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