Why I Heart My Media

• Maintaining family ties
• Expression
• Dreams
• Inspiration
• Art

Mario Krastev, 13888951

I want to share two posts I saw on media about media.

The first says something like this: Why “I hope this email finds you well”? When it comes to those emails from my uni, I sincerely hope they can’t find me at all. Of course, it is about how much stress those emails can bring us and that sometimes we simply want to run away from all those responsibilities. I am impressed by the playfulness of its language. Also, it makes me reflect on my love-hate relationship with media. I don’t want to be disturbed by those emails when I am just about to take a break. However, it will be difficult for me to pass my courses without those emails since I am not well informed.

The second is about a slogan on the London tube saying something like “you are staring at your phone screen just to avoid eye contact with strangers”. Most of the time, we regard our phone as a tool of communication. We can expose ourselves to the public through online platforms with our digital devices and get more information about others in return, whether we notice it ourselves or not. However, when we are actually in the so-called real public environment, we refuse to exchange any information with those right in front of us while enjoying the public space online simultaneously, which is slightly self-contradictory. But anyway, I do think media are more introvert-friendly since we can comment and even passionately discuss topics we both like without worrying about feeling not confident enough when meeting offline. After all, we will not be able to withdraw what we have said offline.

I guess media somehow both shorten and lengthen the distance between people.

The reason to why I love media is quite difficult to identify. I’d say it’s the way media allows us to connect with people that truly fascinates me, especially for someone who has family and friends across the world. If I’m being honest, it’s quite hard to always stay in touch with relatives especially when they live so far away! It sometimes comes to a point where it feel’s like we’re strangers rather than family members but media mends that distance like a bridge, easing communication, specially during the global pandemic. Because of media, I’ve stayed in contact with life-long friends and family but also formed wonderful relationships and friendships that would not have occurred if media didn’t exist. This is one of many reasons to why I love media!

Student number – 13920170

Many are the human being’s sentiments, but we usually attempt to remember just few of them: that ones that we like more and that one that have an impact on us.

In my opinion they are love, hate, happiness and sadness.
I saw love in the LGBTQ+ Community, which always supports everyone in every part of the world thanks to media.
We can see the hate in the racism that some people persist to spread.
The happiness is in the families’ eyes who found a missed part of the
family.
The sadness, instead, is the everyday news about families who are divided by wars, poverty and the willpower to live a better life.

Media are part of us because we are media.

Milena Dosijanoski 14082179

Its just this video:

Ibi Imrich

uva id: 13982273

Why do I Heart My Media?

I’ll be super honest with you: I ask myself that question pretty much everyday, especially now that I’m in a program that focuses on this thing I love and everything it encompasses. Which is a lot.

Already media is a lot of things, just like you are a lot of things and I am a lot of things. And not only that, Love is a lot of things: a lot of thoughts and emotions that constantly fit but also clash. In terms of my media, I love books and movies and tv shows and articles/magazines and social media (most days). I don’t particularly care for newspapers or the radio, I personally find it a little hard to follow.

It is great to love all these things but then what do I do with all of it? Perhaps that is the real question. I love writing about why Friends is such an amazingly genius show, or going on about how Greta Gerwig’s directional take on 2019’s Little Women was just absolutely fantastic and changed the entire tone of the story. I love making videos and editing pictures for my family and friends – but I do get mad that I love something so incredibly difficult at times. There is so much to understand and learn! So many things to read, watch and download, so many communities/fandoms to try and fit into. It’s beautifully frustrating.

To be more specific and on point with this assignment, I’ll talk about Instagram. Don’t get me wrong, social media sucks for a multitude of reasons most of the time. And I do completely agree with the fact that it, among other media as well, can be completely overwhelming. But it’s also fun and fascinating. I particularly love instagram because I love planning, editing and getting inspiration from other people. The way it influences us and gateways huge trends is honestly pretty crazy, and it equally brings up so much within each individual. Often I’ll take a look at people’s instagram feeds: how they’re planned and laid out with the color schemes, every picture and its angles carefully composed. This all comes together to ultimately create something beautiful – and hopefully more or less authentic: an aesthetically pleasing layout of squares, capturing moments. Maybe that doesn’t really speak to you, but I genuinely enjoy that kind of stuff. And you can find it anywhere. There is no doubt that social media is toxic, and that often these Instagram feeds, for example, just create jealousy and comparison with others. Yet we a) go back to it and b) it is important to remember that our media is imperfect, like us, as we’ve learned so well in our lectures. And to be fair (and honest), media is what we make of it – we create a big part of all this.

So I guess, to conclude, I heart my media because it, quite literally, takes me in every direction. Sometimes I hate that because when adults ask me, “What do you want to be then?”, the answer is never certain. And that is stressful. Yet it’s still pretty cool to love something so diverse and interesting to examine and even take part in. So I love it. Why? Different reason everyday.

Thanks for reading (:

when I think about the words ‘heart’ or ‘love’, my brain immediately starts to wonder; I actually don’t think I can give only one answer to the question “why I heart my media”. I think I’ve come to the conclusion that over the years I have established a love/hate relationship with my media… 

For example :  MY media has caused me to have body image issues but at the same time my media has also allowed me to connect with my loved ones which are all over the world; MY media has allowed me to graduate from high school but my media has also caused me to have severe social anxiety; MY media makes me feel like I belong but at the same time distracts me from being productive… I mean you get the point ! 

At the end of the day we can choose how our media makes us feel, although we feel like we don’t have power over these devices we can still control the long lasting effects it can have on us which is why sometimes it’s hard to take a break from it.. it’s like leaving a toxic relationship with the person you love. 

Student Number : 13995340

Nu ik media en cultuur studeer aan de UvA, realiseer ik me meer hoeveel media voor mij betekenen. Tijdens de pandemie kwam ik er al achter hoe fijn het is dat we media om ons heen hebben, maar door de studie ben ik media meer gaan waarderen. 

Media zijn voor mij een ontsnapping van de realiteit, maar tegelijkertijd een ontdekking in de realiteit. Een filmpje pakken of een boek lezen om even alles om me heen te vergeten, maar tegelijkertijd FaceTimen met mijn vader en moeder en appen naar mijn beste vrienden ‘to keep in touch’.

studentnummer: 13699288

I have a love hate relationship with my media ––a sentiment which I think many people today share. It’s easy to say I hate it, to say that I feel it’s consuming my life and that I can’t seem to disconnect from it. But over time, I’ve started to realize that maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. Especially now that I’m away from my family and my closest friends, my media allows me to stay in touch with them. I share my life with those I care about in the form of videos, pictures and facetime calls. I get to peek in on their lives in the same way ––it’s the next best thing to being there in person. It’s easy. 

It’s just as easy, however, to veer off of my study plans and start endlessly scrolling through instagram. It gets a little harder to focus on the things I need to get done when I have access to the world at the tip of my fingers ––all finely packaged into a single, convenient device. Again, it would be easy to say that this is bad and call it a day, but the sheer disappointment I feel after wasting hours on tiktok, and subsequently having to stay up way too late, has taught me at least a semblance of self control. In some ways, I feel it has made me more disciplined. 

Media can be overwhelming. I have access to so much, it’s sometimes hard to choose what I want to spend time doing. But as a result of this dilemma, I have become more selective. I have grown with my media, evolved, and learned to easily maneuver around whirlwinds of choices and distractions. 

I’m not particularly fond of silence. My life has always been monopolized by music. With my media I can have my headphones in whenever I want and blast songs during any especially dull moments where I am waiting for public transport. So on any occasion when I have said I hate my media, I think what I just didn’t like was my inability to focus, or choose whatever I defined as a “good” use of my time. For the most part, I love being able to connect with those I care for, especially when they are miles away. I love being able to find the answers to random 3 AM questions in mere seconds. I love being able to drown out dull silences. 

(Student ID: 13552740)