Why I Heart My Media

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

I have never thought about whether I loved media or not. While I do believe that Media is an important part of today’s society and the media that we end up consuming is catering to our specific interests. I don’t know how I truly feel about media, I know I’m grateful for it and I’m also well-aware of its flaws and the unattainable standards its set. I don’t ever really have a reason to be interacting with media as much as I do, it fills this empty part of me with bad tweets and information that will not help me move forward in life and it has made life feel centered around it especially since the pandemic began. I believe that media can do great things especially through different platforms but it can also be detrimental for us. I don’t know how I feel about media.

13688154

Media is ubiquitous which means its presence is ongoing and can be found everywhere. I have grown to form an ambivalent relationship with Media. On the one hand, it offers multiple opportinities to expand your perspective and learn new things every single day about what seems to be an unlimited amount of subjects. Furthermore, it has facilitated communication to the point where I am able to chat with freinds and family who live thousands of kilometers away and know what is going on 24/7, just with a few taps or clicks on a screen.

However as many say, “Where there is light, there is also darkness”. Meaning there are both pros and cons to Media. On the contrary to Media’s many positive aspects, unfortunately it also contains many fake or negative aspects which impact on a global scale causing poltical conflicts/polarisation, increase in anxiety, self hate etc…

Nevertheless it has become so integrated into our lives that a world without Media is unimaginable and it is only advancing more and more as we go.

So as an optimist, I believe we should treat is as we treat life,in which we just go with it, seeking for the best and learing from our mistakes.

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I’ve always understood that we live in a society characterized by countless social and economical margins, stereotypes and stigmas. I was also always able to recognise them, but not understand nor overlook them. In fact, in a modern evolving society which is symbolised by its co-dependent liaison with the media, I deem it essential to perceive such rapport as a way to recognize and dismantle these social and economical stigmas; those digital boundaries that have constrained the human specimen for decades, those margins that frame, portray and compose society.

Student Number: 13562053

Media controls my life more than I would like to admit, and I have yet to figure out whether I dislike it. In some ways, I prefer not being entirely in control, just lazily following the masses, becoming one of the social media zombies: it’s easier than being your own person all the time. I might slowly be turning into a zombie, completely dependent on media, but at least I will be a very happy zombie.

Lea Kemper – 14036274

Media teaches me everything.
It is the antonym of ignorance.

I love it insanely.
But as I explore media more frequently and deeply, it makes me realize that sometimes ignorance is better, or pretending to be ignorant.
Why?
I don’t have to worry about whether there are people spying on me or stealing my personal information through my devices while I can do nothing about it.

The insecurity raised by this issue keeps bothering me when I open every single website. The little 🔒 sign, meaning “a safe website”, next to the URL on top of the browser is the biggest comfort I have ever gotten on Media.
Therefore,
I used to surf the Internet recklessly and do whatever I want.
And now I surf the Internet insecurely and do whatever I want.

student number: 13613812

My dad used to play all the music we listened to as a family on an old iPod. The kind that makes a ticking sound as you scroll through the thousands of albums you’ll never have time to listen to fully. It sat in the corner of our oddly shaped living room, hiding behind the left side of the TV. He would always play Don’t Know Why by Norah Jones for my mom as we ate dinner. And on days she wasn’t there, he would play Iron Man by Black Sabbath for my sister and me in order to get us excited to brush our teeth in the evening. He had thousands of hours of music that I had yet to discover.

When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I remember being on vacation with my family a few hours away from home. I was always an early riser and was awake before everybody else. My parents had told me that if I was hungry on mornings like those, I could make myself breakfast. At the time I only knew how to make two kinds of breakfasts: cereal, or eggs. We had no cereal, so eggs it was. Before getting started, I found the old iPod and plugged it into the portable speaker my dad had brought with and put it on volume 1 – I didn’t want to wake anybody up. Come Together by The Beatles. Sunny side up with a pinch of salt and pepper. The song and the experience now go hand in hand. For some reason this moment stuck with me and pops up into my mind more often than not. I realised that it’s because it was one of the first times I felt freedom within media and saw that I had the power to change my view and experience of life around me, even express myself differently than I would have, had I cooked my egg in silence. 

That iPod is back home now, sitting behind the TV, still. Although it’s far away from me, I can’t ignore that it shaped most memories I had up until I was about 15 years old. It guided me and still plays the tunes I can hear in my childhood memories.

I love my media because they allowed me to fall into music and allowed music to fall into me. That little iPod was just the beginning of my constant seek for new versions of my surroundings, my creativity and myself. I love my media because they have allowed me to create realities that only I will ever truly know and understand as a part of me. I love my media because they make my reality what I want to see. 

E.C., 13627805

Ik kan mijzelf nog herinneren dat ik mijn eerste Nintendo DS kreeg voor mijn vijfde verjaardag. Ik kan mijzelf ook nog herinneren hoe ik elke dag de film ‘Cars’ opnieuw en opnieuw keek toen ik een jaar of vier was. Of dat ik na school met vrienden ging afspreken om Mario Kart op de Wii te spelen. Dit zijn mijn eerste echte herinneringen aan games en films die natuurlijk vallen onder media en deze zijn goud waard. Voor mijn gevoel maken ze mij namelijk wel een soort van wie ik nu ben.

Naarmate ik ouder geworden maak ik veel meer gebruik van media dan vroeger. Ik zit elke dag op mijn telefoon op apps als Instagram, Tiktok, Snapchat, Whatsapp en nog veel meer. Ik vind het erg leuk om op mijn telefoon met vrienden te praten, het nieuws te volgen, memes voorbij te zien komen en films kijken. Alleen soms wens ik wel dat ik wat minder achter mijn telefoon zit. Dat zou mij namelijk wat meer tijd geven om meer ‘echte’ leuke dingen te doen, zoals mijn vrienden vaker in het echt zien. 

Media is echt overal en iedereen is met elkaar verbonden en dat vind ik erg goed, maar soms denk ik wel eens na over een wereld zonder telefoons, televisies, radio’s enzovoort. Ik ben erg benieuwd hoe dat zou zijn en wat er allemaal anders zou zijn. 

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You would think “everything” is an exaggerated word, at least in terms of describing your relationship with something that’s visual. 

But what usually is our everything? If you ask me, I would say its family. And media has helped me be there with and for my family, over this huge distance of separate continents.

I would not dare to imagine my current university life without this thing that we call media. Technically speaking, my home country is a 13 hour flight away, but emotionally speaking, I can never patch this void of my family’s absence with me right now. Media has significantly helped me with this.

It warms my heart when I see my mom’s smiling face everyday, when she video calls me, without fail. My cooking would be incomplete without hearing my grandmother bawl out about how disproportionate the spices in my curry are. Above all, it’s the sunshine, which my 5 year old golden retriever, adds to my gloomy days (If only I could hug him through my camera). 

It is this media, this technology, which helps me put up with my friends and family overseas, and I am extremely thankful for it. The “if I would have been there” chats, the “did you know what happened behind you” gossips and the “we wish you were here” emotional tears, are all meaningful to me today, and therefore, I HEART MY MEDIA.

Student ID: 13914278

Just like everyone else, my relationship with media is complicated and, well, weird. Brought up in the age of praising and villainizing smartphones, I always had mixed feelings toward ICT devices. But, maybe, the most important thing that media taught me is the tenderness of parasocial relationships. “But online relationships – platonic or romantic – are not real!”, I get that a lot and still I’m not going to get into the whole “what makes relationships real” thing now. For the sake of this, just take my word for it: mediated affection is an actual thing that can make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. What I mean is: I met my best friend of six years on Wattpad when I was 13; we are currently living wall to wall and if I need to tell her something I just have to knock on her door. Sometimes we do laundry together and watch all the TV shows we said we’d watch when we spend time face to face. Then, I fell in love, dated, broke up with, and ghosted a person whom I met on Tumblr last year in April – now we’re friends and they’re one of the people I love the most. When I think about domestic bliss it’s us eating spring rolls and playing “Breath of the Wild” on their couch. There’s a guy in Canada who understands my hype for Avatar: The Last Airbender and with whom I play Dungeons&Dragons two Fridays a month. He tells me good morning when he goes to sleep. I knew this girl from middle school, but we never talked. This year, she DM’d me on Instagram and we started hanging out. Sometimes she says something or shows me a picture that makes her happy and I’m overwhelmed with the tenderness and softness I have for her. I found out I wasn’t straight on Wattpad when I was 12: a girl from Wisconsin told me how she fell in love with her girlfriend and the thought of kissing a girl slithered its way in my brain. Oh. Oh. This is a thing. Tumblr – yes, Tumblr is still a thing in 2021 – helped me realize I am genderqueer, because non-binary people I followed were talking about their experiences and it dawned on me that there was a name for this weird awkwardness I felt towards my identity. So maybe social media isn’t all milk and honey, this sweet thing that brings only wholesomeness in your life. But there is love online, because after all, media are just as human as we are.

Student number: 13635174