As a young adult in today’s society, it is relatively easy to differentiate how we grew up versus how our parents grew up and how drastically our behavioral patterns have changed.
Nowadays I have so much more opportunities to educate myself, either about topics I love or about questions I always had on my mind but was too afraid to ask someone, for various reasons. Thus I can prevent making mistakes by parents had made or just learn something new in general through using media devices and search engines to my advantage. In more detail, that means I am able to watch youtube videos for example, in which people talk about their tattoos and which tattoo artists they like, learn about different styles or what to consider before getting a tattoo and so forth, whereas my parents certainly did not have the opportunity to do that and simply went to a random tattoo studio that was the closest to their homes. In broader terms that means their radius, in which they lived and interacted in was much more smaller and basically based in the city they were born it and will most likely die in. Because of how we interact with media these days, new worlds have – metaphorically speaking – opened up, meaning we can either make use of our mobile devices and learn about different cultures, foreign art or previously unknown languages without ever leaving the house but we can also make use of our devices to help us understand a foreign culture while visiting it since we can research and translate basically anything on our phones.
Moreover, due to the mobile media devices and the activities they offer, which include calling and messaging someone in the most basic telephone devices, I can keep in daily contact with my friends, even though they live in completely different parts of the world. This creates a great contrast to how people used to keep in contact with their families and friends at home since letters took weeks to arrive back in the days when mass communication was not established yet. More often than not during WW2, soldiers at the front would write their families letters, telling them how good things were and how they are happy to get home again and by the time the letter arrived appreciate they were long dead.
Even though this is a drastic example, it shows quite clearly how media devices have improved our social arrangements, and with the devices continuously getting smaller and handier, it is almost impossible to find an excuse to not keep in touch with loved ones. This changed the perspectives of friendship and love, just to name a few, for the reason that one does not even have to be physically close to someone to be able to truly get to know them, making use of video calls, voice note messages and so forth.
In conclusion, media devices have shifted our perceptions of the world as we can interact with it on a whole different level than older generations did, educate ourselves about anything we like without restrictions due to language barriers or physical distance and be close to loved ones even though they are hundreds of miles apart.
Lara Rittmeier
Why I Heart My Media 