The schools have been shut down for nearly a week, and I’m finding myself using my phone more than ever, despite having tons of school work to do along with catching up with tons of other responsibilities. I went on a ski trip last weekend and i told myself that whenever things weren’t super exciting i wouldn’t resort to looking and scrolling through my phone. my screen time from when i was away was significantly lower than the week prior, which i expected. when i was away my average screen time on Friday Saturday and Sunday was 1.4 hours. thats pretty good seeing as I’m going to have to go completely media free for 24 hours before i start writing my paper. as the paper deadline is approaching, I’m becoming slightly nervous about how successful i am when i do the 24 hour media fast. since I’ve been in quarantine due to the COVID-19 virus it’s pretty difficult to not pay attention to your cell phone I’m finding, I’m also watching more Netflix than usual. for example, with all of the time I’m convincing myself i have while in quarantine, i’m now binge watching tv-shows on a weekday rather than waiting for the weekend. besides that, i did delete my Instagram account for about a week, i’ve heard of a bunch of people doing it for a sort of “reset” and i can say for sure it has helped with my ability to focus during that time, but now i have re-downloaded the app, i think that could be classified as addiction, but who knows. during this period so far of trying to limit my cellphone and social media use, i have learned that looking at my cell phone is the default thing to do when nothing else is going on. for instance, when i get tired or want to take a break from writing the essay i’m currently working on i’ll take a break and look at my phone. another thing that i have realized since trying to reduce my social media use, is that: the less i look at social media the more confident i am, and being unreachable is sort of nice sometimes. when i deleted my Instagram account, i wasn’t keeping up with what my friends were sharing which made it all the better when i saw them in person, and they asked “hey did you see that meme i sent you?” besides that, in light of COVID19 virus and amidst being in the middle of this very strange time; i’ve decided to activate “downtime” on my cell phone from 5:00 pm to 10: pm every night. next week i’ll log the amount of school work i get done during those hours and see how much more work i can get done.

My screen time on my cellphone has been up by 20% since last week, this most likely has something to do with having a week off from work and school. Instagram and YouTube are still at the highest, in the last week I’ve spent 6.5 hours on YouTube and 4 hours and 16 minutes on Instagram. i have also been watching a ton of more television, Netflix in particular due to having some down time from school and work. hopefully i’ll be more conscious of my cellphone use when i’m back to my regular schedule. In the reading for last week, Henry Jenkins talks about Pierre Levi’s collective intelligence, which he relates to online fan communities. in the tutorial we spoke about several different topics, one in particular was DIY culture. last week i was hanging out with a coworker during some down time, he’s an aspiring artist and was showing me a video he created through adobe premier, he shot it with his cellphone, and i was in awe about how well the video was edited and shot. he had very little prior knowledge of videography, and he himself was surprised at the quality of the final video. Jenkins article was from 2002, so i suppose this would be a very modern example of the DIY culture in todays society. Most of Jenkins article focuses on online fan communities, and when i was in the tutorial i really couldn’t think of anything that i’ve ever been a part of that would resemble an online fan community. however, after the tutorial i realized that i do follow “fan” pages on Instagram, i follow a few Travis Scott fan pages, mostly just to get glimpses of his live shows, but nonetheless i do sometimes read debate in the comments section about when his new music will be dropping, or when his new sneaker will be coming out etc. Speaking of Travis Scott and fandom, he has said in interviews he most enjoys performing because he is attending a show in itself, the fans. one of the other questions that caught my attention from the tutorial was “What if these Survivor fans turned their attention to addressing other matters besides what is going to happen on TV? Might this have a future impact on community building? Democracy? Politics?” without a doubt, if people invested the same amount of effort as they do in these fan groups, and focused their attention on other things such as social issues, or being involved in politics, things would change. but politics and social issues are boring to most folks. another question from the tutorial that caught my attention was “Are we, the audience, being liberated through improved media technologies? going back to what i previously noted about my coworker; he is certainly liberated in terms of creative expression in the way he is able to shoot these videos. back in the day it would’ve costed him thousands of dollars to shoot a video like that. I think there are hundreds of examples in todays age that would describe how the audience is becoming liberated. collective intelligence vs. the expert paradigm also struck my attention. i think that there certainly is tension, and collective intelligence is for sure a good thing, but i also think we still definitely need experts. having access to information is good, and you may get several different answers, but speaking to an expert when searching for answers would always be the way to go for me, especially in serious situations. for example, i would much rather ask a specialist a medical question, rather than post to a forum and ask tons of random people, who may be able to give me the correct answer, but i’m going to choose the expert every time.

my first post i was surprised to find out how much time i was really spending and engaging with media. in terms of media other than my cell phone, not a lot has changed. when i’m at work i’m constantly in front of two monitors, and when I’m not at work I’m usually spending my time working on school work, also infant of a monitor. my cellphone use however, my screen time on my phone has dropped significantly, a drop of 39% since last week. i think this is largely due to the fact that i was conscious of how much i was using my cellphone and was making an effort to stop using it so much. although, school workload has been steadily picking up, along with extra hours at work so that may have played a significant role in the 39% drop from the prior week. there was no tutorial in class this week, but the reading by Henry Jenkins was of interest to me. he talks about complaining to his colleague Amy about the 50 emails that he had gotten after being offline for a month, and this was back in the 80’s. it made me think that i am more excited now when i get physical mail, rather than when i get emails. maybe that is just because it a rare thing now, because of the digitization of the world. it made me think that perhaps old media could make a comeback in the near future, unlikely but maybe it could happen for different reasons. Henry Jenkins also noted that he was a fan of Twin Peaks back in the 80’s, which i am also a fan of. besides all that, the only other media engagement aside from working, doing school work and being on my phone is watching Netflix, true crime shows in particular at the moment.

i’m tracking all of my media use and interaction on a daily basis. my iPhone has an option in the settings which tells you how much screen time you have used, i have only checked it a number of times, but as i just checked it i was most certainly shocked. today, January 29th 2020 my total screen time as of 7:20 pm AT is 5 hours and 8 minutes. that is quite a lot, but as i scrolled down on my phone a little, my daily average is 8 hours and 54 minutes, wow. As of today, I’ve spent 2 hours and 12 minutes social networking, 1 hour and 6 minutes on entertainment, and 4 minutes on reading and referencing. And that is just my phone, i watched a 2 hour long documentary in class today, and the television is also on in the background right now as I’m writing this. i am going to set myself a goal, to lower my screen time down on my phone to 3 hours a day, and check 1 week from today and then post the results.i feel as if that is way too much time to be spending on my phone. apart from my phone, i am going to track my other media engagement separately. the reading from the first week of class, a professor challenges her students to go a full 24 hours without using their cell phone, or any other media for the matter. i’m going to try this for my term paper, and i think trying to reduce my screen time on my phone will help me out as i get closer to start writing the paper. as of now with my weekly report on my phone, Youtube, Instagram, and Twitter are the apps I spend most time on. now that i am more conscious of how much time i’m really spending on my phone i’m starting to question why i’m doing it. In “The Longest Day”, our first reading, there is a mention of Neil Postman that thought television at the time was constraining higher thought, perhaps he was right at the time, maybe now it is electronic media that is constraining higher thought and intellect?

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

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