Hello to everyone in MCO 425 and welcome to my blog!
How fitting that the first blog assignment for this Digital Media Literacy class is to self-reflect on an average day of our own personal media use. Or should I say how scary! I know I was dreading looking at what media I use in a day and especially what news content I interact with. So let me first start with a timeline of my media use from yesterday, Friday August 23rd, listed below:
7:00am – Wake up to my child kicking me in bed and get him a banana to eat
while watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on tv
– As he watches cartoons, I pick up my phone and check Facebook
and Instagram
– Reality Blurb is my favorite “news” type media to find out
information on reality stars I follow
7:45am – While making breakfast for child, I play Pandora radio
8:00am – While eating at table with child, pulled up the Bert Show out of
Atlanta, GA and listened to the morning show/certain segments
8:45am – Spoke on phone with mom and sister while watching Sesame
Street on the TV with child
10:00am – Went upstairs to do laundry and had 90 Day Fiancé and Sesame
Street playing in background while I cleaned
10:30am – Turned all media off and read books with child
11:15am – Went back downstairs to get lunch ready for toddler (listened to
Pandora radio while cooking and also checked Canvas online
classes for updates on class forum questions)
11:45am – Sat down to eat with toddler and spoke to mom while eating; then
cleaned up once done and cleaned the kitchen while toddler played
with toys
12:45am – Played with toddler and toys
1:15pm – Husband came home and toddler and I went upstairs to catch up
(Sesame Street was on tv)
2:00pm – Toddler fell asleep on chest and I searched the internet
– looked at Instagram again
– looked at Facebook and Army wives information pages
– looked for swimming lessons online
– was shopping online
– looked for flights online
2:30pm – Put toddler to sleep with husband and read Nutrition book for other
session class
4:30pm – Started to make dinner and spoke with husband about day
5:25pm – Dinner complete and sat to eat
6:25pm – All three of us got up and husband and I started to clean kitchen
6:35pm – Made cinnamon rolls and ate a couple with husband/toddler and
then watched a little bit of Croods on tv
7:35pm – Sat at computer to do school work until 9:45pm
– In between lag times, I checked Instagram to take a mental break
10:15pm – Sat in bed and scrolled through Facebook until I fell asleep while on
my phone
Just looking at my daily routine, I believe what it shows has much to do with my current life situation. I am a mom to a toddler who is all over the place and I am also married to a traveling soldier in the Army. One may ask, how would those two aspects truly affect my media consumption in a 24 hour period? Well, on a daily basis I try my hardest to only have shows on the television that would be what I deem as appropriate for the age my child currently is. This means that I cut out much of what I used to watch on that form of media such as violence, most reality television, and yes, even daily news gets cut in order for my son to watch his Elmo. One will also notice that while I search the internet, I very rarely if ever post to any social media sites. I attribute this lack of a social media post presence to the privacy expected being married to a soldier. None of my social media sites even show where I currently live nor do I make it a point to post about certain life aspects or repost any form of news. I made the choice a very long time ago that when it came to social media and posting personal feelings about the world around us, I would tame my tongue in order to keep certain opinions private.
While I do stay away from posting or sharing certain things, as one will notice, I do not stay away from reality television or people on my cell phone. Reality television is my escape, to my husband’s horror, from all things children. I will watch certain reality shows on my phone while my son is asleep or see what my favorite reality television stars are up to on Instagram. In terms of news, I am partly embarrassed that in a day most news content I will search for is on Reality Blurb. It is a news type entertainment website that reports on stories about reality television. Outside of reality television information, I mostly look at the ID Channel stories, People magazine stories, and food recipes on Instagram.
As we have moved into a world where many hastily share news articles without research to the content that is later found to be “fake news”, I choose to stay out of the fray. This being the case, Facebook truly serves as a way for me to keep up with old friends and search the current Army base’s wives page for pertinent information to my location. I did at one point have many friends who would share news articles, mostly political, but I purposely muted them as it got to be where opinions started to serve more as ways to oust others based on whether they agreed or not.
I would not say that I could potentially rank the credibility of reality television or entertainment websites as much of it portrays story lines in order to draw in audiences such as me. In light of this, I would only rank the news stories I watch from the ID Channel on Instagram as a 10 as they are based on real past crimes that have occurred all over the world. My media use timeline would show that most days I wake up ignoring, in a sense, the news that happens all around me. I even purposely listen to the Bert Show radio station only to hear certain segments based around dramatic issues that certain people call in to get advice on. Maybe my media use is the way it is because I am focusing on my child or maybe it seems simpler at times to only focus on the more redundant news that reality television offers.
In either case, to most I know it will seem as though I am ignorant or uninformed to the world around us. My true hope is that this class will provide ways to rifle through the pages of misinformation and thereby stimulate my want of the gritty news again.
Thank you all for reading!
