Reflection Paper
When I first heard in class that we were going to be participating in a large project that would last the span of half of the semester, I considered dropping the class. I still hadn’t quite rubbed summer’s sand out of my eyes and I was felt like I was being dropped into an unrecognizable, scholastic world. After reading over the project description, maybe four or five times, I started to really become intrigued in not only the project, but also what the course was going to cover and teach me. Before I really started taking note of my media habit use, I became hyper aware of it, I actually began to notice when I was would randomly look at my phone out of habit, and I also started taking note of other people, most other students, media habits. What I came to realize after taking field notes and fasting from new media was that while new media and technology can be handy and useful, the way in which I was using it was not good for me for a multitude of reasons.
I use new media and technology when I am alone; the problem with that is that I live in a studio, by myself, and have a job on top of schoolwork; I don’t see my friends very often, so I am alone very often. So how to I deal with my aloneness? I connect to the Internet. If I were to use the amount of time I spend aimlessly skimming through Buzzfeed articles or scrolling through my Instagram feed to work on homework, then I would actually have time to see my friends and family more often. I also would be getting better, more full nights’ sleep. Through my field notes, I came to the realization that it seemed as though the most damaging use of new media for me is late at night, when my body is exhausted from the day but my brain still has some juice left in it, and I lay in my bed with all lights off but one: my iPhone screen. During my fast, I only used my computer for school related work once I got home from work, and it really honestly did help my sleeping issue. The problem is that once the seventy-two hour period was over, I went right back into my same habits. And now? My work schedule has not changed or lightened, schoolwork has only grown heavier as the semester progresses, but my old habits with new media are hard to quit, but I am trying.
It would be much easier to justify my new media use if I was an avid tweeter, or “Instafamous,” or ran a popular page on Facebook, but I am not. Do I really even have an identity online? According to numbers, I have 615 followers on Instagram, 1,252 friends and 43 followers on Facebook, and 137 followers on Twitter. I’d say I have the most online presence on Instagram because I like to post pictures, but whom am I really interacting with and showing my life to when I post? I wonder how many times, over the two or three years that I’ve had an Instagram account, that I’ve gotten upset that I didn’t get as many likes on a picture as I had hoped or anticipated, and how many times I’ve actually deleted a picture because it didn’t get many likes (yes, I have embarrassingly done that). Not getting many likes on Instagram (let’s say 40+) would make me feel like I wasn’t being liked in the world of flesh. If I posted a picture and shared it with the people who follow me, and fewer than forty people liked it, I would feel pretty lame, even if I was just sitting in my bed, alone, not talking to anyone. I am thankful for the new media project for giving me an opportunity to reflect to understand that yes, I am an identity in the digital world, that I have connected but largely more real and important identity in the physical world. I do worry for kids younger than me though, such as my boyfriend’s younger sister who I’ve witnessed scream at him for not liking her most recent Instapic. Hopefully they’ll have to engage in a new media diet at some points in their lives.
One new media habit that I’ve been able to completely curb has been listening to headphones while in commute to work, school, or just about anywhere. I leave my headphones at home and frankly, I don’t even know where they are anymore! By disconnecting from my iPod, I’ve noticed places and things in the city that I likely wouldn’t have noticed before, and my experiences as a Chicagoan has benefitted from this disconnect. As Thompson says, our identity is greatly formed by our experiences in physical life; my experience without headphones and cell phone distractions has allowed me to feel a stronger identity to Chicago, my city, because I’ve been paying more and more attention to what street signs, shops, and restaurants, and I can now comfortably navigate my way around through a larger section of than the city than I could have a few months ago. In exchange for me dropping a digital aspect of my life, the iPod, I was able to pick up a physical, tangible useful bit of knowledge.
Even after I was done with the fasting, I still thought a lot about my new media use, but I also paid attention to other people’s use of media. About a week ago, I was at my mother’s house for dinner, and my sisters and I were trying to remember the words to a rhyme we used to sing when we were younger. We tried for awhile to remember, when finally my mom said, “Why don’t you just Google it?” First and foremost, the fact that my mother was the one to ask the Google-it question is interesting in itself considering how un-tech savvy my sweet mother is. She can barely type on a keyboard, her texts have improved over the years but are very short and direct, and she still has to ask me questions about how to do things that I consider simple, yet she thinks is monumental. If digital literacy were given diplomas, I would probably have my GED or starting to work towards Bachelor’s, while my mom would probably have an sixth grade completion certificate. It’s interesting that almost every level of digital literacy can and will ask Google some of our most trivial, or critical, questions. Another connection from class popped into my head when I heard my mom suggest the Google look-up. One of the main articles from week four was titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, which questions if Google’s abilities make humans less reliant on their own potential knowledge. None of us could remember the words to the rhyme for the life of us, so does that mean that we have bad memories and we’re lazy for looking it up on Google? Absolutely not. Is it lazy when a person Googles simple question they could easily find another way? Absolutely yes. This highlights both the beneficial and costly side of new media.
While I have mostly made note of the dark side of new media, I feel that it is very important and relevant to say that new media has been beneficial to me in many ways. Within the time during my new media fast, I had a conversation with one of my friends during lunch about Ebola; how it spreads, what happens to a person when they become infected, etcetera. She did not have any idea about any of those questions, while I had a very general knowledge of all of the basic questions due to a few articles I had read on Facebook and Buzzfeed. New media, especially social media, can be extremely beneficial for people to share news, information, and knowledge fast and with ease. That being said, it is also incredibly easy for not-so important news to be shared and passed around, such as nude photos of celebrities or that Justin Bebier and Selena Gomez might be dating again. The things that we see on social media are filtered in such a way that the technology is giving you what it thinks you want to see and read about, opposed to what you should see and read about.
Throughout the new media diet project, as well as this course, I have become much more aware of my new media use as well as others. I notice now the frequency in which some people will check their phones while on public transportation, or while eating dinner with a friend. While I can’t judge others for their use, I can reflect upon myself on my use and make changes to live a life that I want to lead. I want to be a person from my generation that is not consumed by my cell phone, my social media accounts, or what’s trending on the Internet. I want to be aware of my surroundings at all times, and truly appreciate the beauty that is in the physical world. I won’t limit myself and say that all new media is a bad and dangerous thing, but I have been able to recognize how my specific use of new media has been bad for me. All in all, new media is only going to become more revolutionary as technology and intelligence progresses, but I promise to myself that I will be able to integrate my physical and digital world together in a cohesive and healthy way.