Back when I was in Istanbul, a chaotic city that I call home, I was not aware of my media at all. I used to see media as a tool that I would use if I got overwhelmed or stressed from all the school work that I had to deal with or a simple device that I would need if I wanted to get in touch with my friends. I was not aware of the ubiquitous nature of media nor the fact that we were becoming media ourselves. Now that I got to study media here at University of Amsterdam, I started to acknowledge that media is almost related to everything in my life.
Media is an integral part of my life. Before attending Living Information lectures, I used to feel like I was an old woman who needed to take her medicine at certain times of the day in order to continue living, the medicine being all three aspects that we discovered while defining media. Therefore, I always found myself in media but when I used my artefacts, my grandparents would judge me and tell me that I should go out, have a walk and put my media away. Thus, I constantly used to be in an inner conflict, not being able to decide whether my media was dangerous since it “captured” me all the time and acted as a significant component that helped me to live, or it was normal to be in media at all times since one of the most important characteristics of media is being pervasive. From the point where I stand now, I definitely see media as more of an environment rather than a series of discrete texts and technologies, as Mark has written in Media Life.
Frankly, I cannot imagine my life without media. I can easily say that I am a person who gets homesick a lot. Since my parents live in Istanbul, my brother in Cologne, my boyfriend in London and my closest friends in Boston, Princeton and different parts of the United Kingdom; I miss them so much and this affects me and my routine most of the time. My closest friend since I have moved here is probably my media since it has always been there for me when I need it the most. If media was not present in my life here in Amsterdam, I would not be able to talk to my parents about how our days went like, learn if my dog did anything funny, tell my boyfriend that I miss him or discuss our new lifestyles with my best friends and tell each other that it would be unbelievably amazing if we had moved to the same city. All these experiences are so valuable to me that I cannot imagine what I would do in a day if I did not have my media. I cannot stop thinking about how thankful I am for WhatsApp, FaceTime, Snapchat and I smile when I think about the time that these social platforms were just a way to kill my time in my high school break times. Bearing the change in the way I feel towards my media, I can say that I understood its value on me and my life when I moved here to Amsterdam and I appreciate my media since it became a part of me.
– 13648691 / Naz Tunacı
Why I Heart My Media 