Personal Media Usage:

Personal Media Usage

            Media is an everyday thing for me I always have my phone on me along with headphones. From the time, I wake up to the time I go to bed I always have some form of media going. When I wake up I typically check my text messages and then go straight into my snapchat. Snapchat is a photo chat application used to send pictures back and forth between users.  I usually wake up to about ten snapchats from people I have a streak with, and for anyone who does not know what having a streak means it is when you have snapchatted the person consecutively for multiple days. The longest streak I currently have is 526 days with my old roommate Ana. I currently have 17 snapchat streaks that I keep up with daily. Snapchat is just one of many media apps I use along with Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

            The app that gets most of my media attention is Instagram a photo sharing app where you can post one or multiple photos with comments for your followers to see and even like. I have a personal profile where I post pictures from my personal life involving family, friends, and sports. I have 1,377 followers on my private profile so I control who can follow me and see my posts. I also have another Instagram account where I market my photography business. On that account, it’s a little different I made it public so anyone can view the content and email my business email to get in contact with me to schedule a photoshoot. I typically spend more time at night on Instagram before bed so I can catch up on everything that I may have missed during the day. After Instagram, I usually head to my Twitter app to scroll through when I’m bored or I want to get sleepy at the end of the day. Twitter is a social networking and message board where people can share their thoughts through tweets. I am not that into twitter I actually downloaded it last year and this is my first year using it. Every now and then I will check Facebook to see what is going on with some of my friends. I mostly use Facebook to wish people happy birthday and look at photos my Mom posted. Typically, anytime I am using social media I use my phone to check everything and my laptop is usually strictly for school work. I do spend a lot of my time on social media platforms and this paper has made me realize that I spend more time than I thought.

I recently updated my phone and the new software update came with a feature that shows how much screen time I have a day. The update shows what percentage of my screen time is spent on social networking, texting, and games. On average, most of my screen time is spent social networking with texting at a close second. Today I looked at my screen time synopsis for my last seven days. For the week, I spent 34 hours and 4 minutes on my phone, averaging about 4 hours and 52 minutes a day. My most used applications were Snapchat which took up 51% of my weekly screen time followed by text messages. During the week, I averaged 18 hours and 18 minutes social networking. FaceTime also takes up a lot of my screen time because I Facetime my boyfriend every night for at least an hour. During the day, I average about 234 notifications per day and 1,637 weekly. Then my screen time monitor notified me that I was on my phone 20% less than last week.

 I would say my media habits have a positive and negative affect on my academics. The positive side of my media habits is it keeps me up to date on what is happening in the world since I typically do not watch the news. Being caught up on today’s events is very important for my major and my classes I am currently enrolled in. Most of my classes like Trends in Modern media require me to be up to date and present my findings. Social networking gives me an advantage for my projects especially when I was in mass communications last semester where I had to give media analysis on popular news and stories. Twitter was extremely helpful in finding stories that were interesting to put into my analysis. There are negative effects to me being so involved with media every day. For instance, while I’m studying it’s hard for me to resist the urge to check snapchat, or scroll through twitter instead of focusing on my work. Social networking also tends to keep me up late and mess up my sleep schedule as well. In past classes I have taken phones were not permitted by professors and made me more attentive. Now in my classes the past two semesters I’ve been allowed to have my phone on and use it throughout class. I have also learned that this has affected me academically where my attentions starts to fade in class I pull out one of my personal devices. Once I take out my personal device any hope of me paying attention is thrown out the window. Overall I feel like the positives and negatives balance out for my academic life. My personal life I feel is mostly positive affects as it connects me with my friends and family that I may not get to see on an everyday basis. Having the ability to social network is great for me to catch up on what my friends are up to on the weekend.

I feel the time I spend weekly or daily on my personal devices for media usage is average for someone my age. My Grandpa likes to give me and my brother a hard time saying we are always on our phones. Which to some people it may seem like people in my age range spend too much time on social networking and our personal devices. Overall I feel my personal media usage has a lot of positive effects on my life and will someday give me an advantage in the workplace.