Why I Heart My Media

My media and I have an ambivalent relationship. On the one hand I am drawn to it, depend on it, dissolve in it and able to express myself with it. On the other hand I avoid it, shut it down and get angry. It is ambivalent and can change from one moment to the other. Maybe in some cases it is not even about the medium itself but the things in it. People saying anything they want without holding back. Irrational opinions with bad argumentation, videos or images which I want to distance myself from as far as possible. I am exposed to both, the good and the bad, not knowing what I will see next. I am mainly talking bout social media here. The “fakeness” the pretending just triggers me from time to time and makes me quite sad, feeling we are living in a dystopian world where we have become the media itself and are only able to live and express ourselves through it.

Other mediums give me such much. Music, films, photography and their capacity of artistic expression can bring me to life, I indulge in them.

It is an ambivalent, however not a relationship that should be underestimated. The word Media is broad and with everything that it embodies, it definitely has a lot to offer.

Matz Bech 13908839

I hate that I am addicted to my media. I hate the it feeling of comfort it provides for me. I hate it when I am out with friend and I look up from my phone just to see them stare at theirs. I hate that I now value life experiences by how good they would look if turned into media. I hate that when I am driving through my hometown the view of the alps is blocked by billboards. I hate that nowadays me and my grandmother can only connect through watching reality TV together. I hate that I can’t read a book anymore without the burning desire to stare at a screen instead. I hate that I have to interact with numerous types of media at once because I am scared of my own thoughts. I hate that I feel like I have let my media stole away an important part of my identity. I just despise all of it but still, I do absolutely nothing about it. And I hate myself for that.

Student number : 13945661

media has given me access to such different cultures, experiences, people, opinions, just helping me broaden my horizons.

however it let me meet the person i love the most and i couldn’t be any more thankful to media for that.

this is why i ❤ my media

1319970

Media, to me, is still a concept hard to grasp. I treat media similarly to my real life – or perhaps media and my life are not even separated, or there is no other ‘real’ life apart from media at all. My perception of media changed a lot since I first ‘know’ – or acknowledge my active usage of media – until when I was consciously concerned about my media usage, then I don’t even notice my media usage anymore. Looking back, my media usage started with Tom and Jerry and Power Ranger DVDs I watched daily on my grandparents’ DVD player – I don’t even remember how I knew to put the CD inside the player and went through numerous buttons and settings to turn the movie on – it seems like a routine that I integrated since I cannot remember. Back then, watching such DVDs and owning such DVDs were a children’s luxury, for us children who bragged about how many episodes we have watched, and who can remember the details better. And I still remember how amazed I was when I first saw some big LED TVs, or TVs that came with sets of 3D glasses, and could even connect to the Internet – all those big, shiny, and delicately sophisticated devices were a myth, a prize, a study goal, a small personal pride when our families possessed one. Online games were still something unfamiliar and complex and magical, of all the games in different genres and colors within one website. As I grew up, such devices were still some captivating entities, were still the prizes for us after a task well done, for a good grade, were times we sneaked our parents to play one or two games on the computer. Games were such an unfamiliar concept and something that seem exclusively ours. “How can our parents play games” – I still remember myself asking after dad asked me how to play a particular mine-digging game.

The appearance and possession of such devices in most households could either reflect children’s privileges or parenting methods. Children owning mobile phones can mean either their families are rich enough, or their parents are lenient enough to let them own one. I remembered times I had to sneak some precious minutes of reading manga on my phone, or my thrilling quests to search for the Wi-Fi cable – my parents tended to hide them around the house when they went to work during the day (to reduce my media use as much as possible). All the conversations concerning the use of media devices with my parents were tedious, and often ended up in additional time restrictions or having my phone thrown away. Until when I entered high school, owning such devices was still a privilege, and sometimes one’s value could be judged via whether their phone is an I-phone or other unnamed Android device. But how time has changed since when I had to squeeze some time before bedtime to read some pages of manga. And how long has everything changed, since when using mobile phones was a bad, additive activity and we often avoided letting our parents see us with phones until these days when our grandparents and parents are asking us how to use social media. And how much time changed since when I used to envy others for having mobile phones, to now the mobile phone is always in my hand, throughout the whole day.

My feelings with media are similar to other feelings in my real life – still, there is no other “real” life separated from media. When doing something, I don’t separate whether I do something with media or without media, it is just a tool in our real life. I feel no hesitant – maybe overly confident – when opening my phone or doing some tasks with my media devices. Sometimes, I still cannot perceive how – and why – I feel that comfortable when exposed to such devices. Time has changed a lot, and also our perception of media. And similarly, such media devices are only a tool within our lives, a close and needed tool indeed – we can use fire for cooking, or fire for burning, it depends on how we use the tool, on what we are doing with such tools in hand – nothing is good or bad itself. And that is exactly the reason I enjoy my media – most things are within my control, and the better I am aware of my media usage, the more I can exploit such media devices, use them as another tool toward my wellbeing.

Student ID: 13667726

student number: 14041642

You watch a movie and dive into a whole different universe, you listen to a song and your perception of your surroundings change or you visit any social media platform, for inspiration, and decide to turn your whole life upside down.

Media helps me escape the stress and struggles of my everyday life. Not that media are not able to add any, but that is not what I am talking about here…

Despite its flaws, media offers me the opportunity to stay in touch with my loved ones, that I am geographically separated from, and creates an aura of their immediate presence.

In conclusion, this is my thank you note to media. So thank you, media!

Anna Voß, 13566458

Before the pandemic I was living with friends in Europe, but once lockdowns started being imposed I had to return to the US, for how long I didn’t know. I went from living in my social network to being incredibly distanced from it. Media kept me from being truly isolated. I was able to stay close to my friends, despite being several thousand kilometers away from them. We were able to play video games together, and maintain our social bonds. Media also enabled me to make new friends where I was, once socialising became a possibility again. Even while I wasn’t communicating with friends media entertained me, I could play video games or watch TV to pass the time – of which I had so much. Without media I would have lost my mind. I love my media because it allows me to maintain my relationships with those I care about, it offers me worlds to enjoy, and the opportunity to make new social connections.

being a person whose life started with taking pictures and sharing to others by my mother, I’ve always been affected by media. however, the extent of how I love media reach the peek during the pandemic. cuz I was so boring been locked in my home, and my only friend is my phone, although i know i talked to my real friends through social media, I’m still using phone as the medium to be connected with the outside world. and i started to post things(such as the my own photography work and my own vlog) on a bigger platform, which could be seen by the people from the whole world, people started to leave comment on me and like my post etc. but the most exciting thing is that, some commercial shooting started to invite me to do the shooting for them, this means i can actually make money just by posing something i like, and i can even make money from that, this made me feel fascinate about it. things started to get toxic cuz i started to pay more attention on the statistics, i started to care about how other people think about my work, which actually affect how i feel. I know it’s not that healthy to obsessed in social media and i started to looking for some info about why people get obsessed with social media, I found that the description is exactly how i feel, thus i feel media is really interesting especially in the temporary world because everyone have their phone with them, everyone is ‘online’. After a period of self reflection. From that time My media fever started to get more and more serious, and the result is that i abandon my scholar as a economy student and started to chase my media fever in uva

student number:13958348

Why I heart my media? Well, that seems like an easy question. Everyone has different hobbies, sense of humors and so on. My media is full of my hobbies, my sense of humor, my people; why would I not like it? I created my media, wouldn’t it be weird if I didn’t like it? I think the key to media is to shape it in a way you’ll enjoy. For example, my friends can’t see what I listen on Spotify. If they could I wouldn’t enjoy my music as much as I enjoy now, because it wouldn’t be ‘my’ music. My media is my ‘me time’. I think I learned how to use it throughout the years, so now my media is only full of positive things and gives me only happiness. 

Student ID: 13591835