I feel that this class has not only made me more aware of what media is but how people interpret media as well. Being only nineteen years old, I have grown up with media all around me. My parents, who were born in 1959 and 1960, have always had trouble understanding why it is I wanted a MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and even a cell phone throughout the years. This past summer was even a battle in convincing them why purchasing a smart phone was worth the extra cost. The fact MediaLife made me aware of was that my parents grew up in a generation that didn’t understand media as we do today. Media has become such a vital part of our lives in the 21st century and most adults who lived before these times don’t accept or understand it. We are becoming less private with our lives due to social networking sites. The most important thing I have learned from this class, in my opinion, is not to have an extremely optimistic point of view on media. We must be able to discern reality from the virtual world. A satiric example of our dependence on media is a quote on found while surfing the web:
“The trouble with quotes on the internet is that it’s difficult to discern whether or not they are genuine.”
― Abraham Lincoln
With this “quote” by Abraham Lincoln we are told that we must be cautious not to believe everything we see online. To truly appreciate media, we must understand it.
-Chelsie Bousum
Why I Heart My Media 