My love for media might have begun with the games on Nokia’s Blackberry prototype, which I truly adored at the time of my late childhood. Yes, its games such as “Bounce” and “Nokia Snake” caused me to have recurrent insomnia and even eyesight problems, but that is the part I am willing to forget. At least it gave me joy, during the late evenings, to secretly and silently curse under the bedsheets (so my mother wouldn’t hear me) after losing a game.
The next thing I remember is the time when my father installed the internet on the family’s single computer. It was so beloved that we even had made a timetable when it was somebody’s turn to utilize it. Whilst I used it, I made the most of it. Generally, I was learning lyrics of rap songs on Youtube. I recall jamming with Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa, imagining I am indeed “Young, wild and free”, even though I had no clue what I was rapping about. My family didn’t tell me either.
The first time creating a Facebook account was the beginning of my social media addiction. I loved the birthday wishes posts, tagging my all 40 “friends” on a random picture, sharing a cheesy quote on my “wall”, and sending a text to 10 people in order to have a lucky day. After Facebook, I had an enormous crush on Instagram and a slightly smaller adoration for Snapchat. It is crazy how these social media apps sucked me in and it is horrifying to think how much time I’ve spent in them.
Lonely togetherness. News fatigue. Oversharing. Disinformation. The monotony of social media. Boredom. Overload. That is what sometimes now I feel in media. Quite differently from my childhood times.
Although occasionally I catch myself feeling hatred towards the ubiquity of media and feel coerced to touch my phone screen every half an hour, I still encounter feelings of assuredness, safety, tolerance and serenity in the online world. Perhaps it is the fact, that everywhere I go I am in a way united with humankind via a plastic machine in my pocket.
At last, a joke: Which social media platform do vegans hate the most? Google meet.
Student ID: 13658166
Why I Heart My Media 