I would say I have a love-hate relationship with my media, but why? Well, I love my instagram feed, it inspires me to indulge into media related work. It inspires me to write scripts, go out and take photos, and it inspires me to work on short videos/films. I also love my feed because I follow accounts that interest me, so the posts I look at are always things I’m interested in and somehow benefit me. This will make you think I only follow ‘boring’ accounts, but no, I follow meme accounts and all that. However, I also follow accounts that help me understand more about the filmmaking industry (which is important to me). I also follow accounts that indulge me into my hobbies, such as motorsports, design, and music. So why would I hate my Media?
I’ll tell you why I hate my media. I hate my media because at times it makes me lazy and unmotivated. You get bombarded with a lot of ideas, other people’s creative work, and the normal toxicity, and all that together just makes me question if I’m on the right path with what I’m doing. The thought of “Doing too little” is always there in the back of my head, and yes it is motivating as it makes me want to work, but at the sametime it just makes me overthink simple things. Things I shouldn’t even be overthinking, things that I do not have control over. I’m 17, it’s my first year in university, in a whole new country feeling a little lost with my courses as I’m not used to having a lot of academic freedom. Yet here I am comparing myself to established or at least experienced filmmakers, photographers, and creative personals who have had years of experience in their field. So is my media consumption toxic?
A short and simple answer would be yes, but who likes short and simple answers? They’re not fun, and that’s not how life is and if it is for you, then you must be very lucky… or very boring. My media basically fulfills all my needs, as I need it for editing, getting inspiration, disconnecting from reality, and having a laugh. Before I continue let me explain what I mean by disconnecting, because apparently we can’t disconnect from anything. However, I think we can, because we just become zombies. We disconnect from reality by mindlessly scrolling through different media platforms, but isn’t that bad? No, at least that’s what I think. It’s just a taking a break, a type of relaxation, one could even call it a way of meditating. The only issue here is that you need a lot of self control in order to come back from the land of zombies, and yes it is hard, but practice makes perfect. That is why I have a love-hate relationship with the media.
One last thing I would like to discuss is how society puts shame on being too indulged within Media. There is nothing wrong with it, it all depends on the type of content you are indulged with. If its content that brings you inspiration, then what is wrong with it? Embrace your media consumption, become one with it, then try to make change.
Student Number: 13822764
Why I Heart My Media 