To understand why I heart my media It’s truly as simple as realising that for me media acts as a veil between two worlds. On one side, we have who I want to become, what I want to do and where I want to be; while on the other side, lies the reality I’m trying to avoid. Media allows me to redirect my focus from one side to the other. Hiding for periods of time anything that overwhelms me. It’s my safety net in case things ever get too stressful.
Most of us aren’t aware of just how much media distracts us on a daily basis. While some may want to declare War on the Machines, they’re times when I couldn’t be more grateful for them. For example, entering my first week at university was more challenging than I imagined. I often found myself seeking some type of consolation that my family members couldn’t provide since they were half a world away. Rather than focusing on the distance or letting myself get carried away by my worries. I jumped head first into media. This is because when your mind is on a million things, such as Netflix on one tab, while a YouTube video plays on another, with instagram on you phone and the news on in the background; it will most likely struggle to share it´s attention with anything else.
I’ve always been in a particular position with media. On the one hand, I consider them an essential part of our life, but on the other hand, I don’t like how much addicted to them we have become. Media are amazing: people have been able to create a tool that prioritise communication and information all around the world. With just an internet connection or Wi-Fi, we are able to exchange literally everything with a click. We can video call our family, share our life, help people with disorders, play games and so on. However, sometimes I wonder if this entire new technological world is really what we need. I would like to go back in time to see how our parents used to be at our age. With just one phone per house that didn’t allow you to have a private conversation, when there was no Google Maps but just maps, when you needed change to call at the phone box. I’d like to go back to a moment in time when relationships were real and authentic and you enjoyed to go out with your friends and TALK. Talk is the word. Nowadays we don’t talk anymore if not through a media tool. People go lunching together and they use their phone all the time, without even looking at each other. Moreover, most of the time, they take a picture of the dish or make a video with the intention of saying, “I’m here with my friends”, but for what? Are you really enjoying the moment? Are you laughing, crying, discussing with your friends? And most importantly, are they even your friends anymore? Sometimes I just want to destroy every media on the planet to see how people are going to behaviour, if there is still a bit of reality inside of them or if the net absorbed it all. Just enjoy your damn life. It’s short. We’re still young and maybe we do not realise that, but we’re not going to live forever. So, sometimes, just put away your phone and enjoy. Enjoy a concert, the disco, your friend’s birthday, a chilly night with your folks, a lunch together. Just, live your life. Not through a screen, but the real one. I promise, it’s worth it.
I love my media because it makes me feel connected and not alone. I can always contact anyone at anytime and especially when I’m in a relationship, connection is important. My mom would tell me stories about her relationship at my age, how there was no way for them to contact each other except on every Saturday when they would usually meet. I wouldn’t be able to imagine seeing my boyfriend once a week and not knowing if he would even show up. So, media can become very handy in this case. I also hate the fact that I would waste so much time on it, either texting or just distracted by the contents I could easily swipe up. The endlessness makes it hard for me to break the cycle and thus I would spend about an hour or two on my phone.
Media is great don’t get me wrong. But it either keeps you entertained or waste your time and it’s usually both for me. It’s my guilty pleasure to be distracted on my phone, watching dog videos instead of doing work. This would make me frustrated because I wouldn’t get things done but I would still be on my phone because it’s more fun than doing school work. See? Love-hate relationship. Even while writing this blog post, as soon as I picked up my phone I completely forgot about that I was supposed to be writing, and watched more dog videos.
More things I love but hate at the same time: my laptop is very useful, I can take notes on it and never need to buy notebooks again. But it can lag or have bad connections which would often lead to me losing my notes. My alarm clock helps me to wake up early in the morning but it’s annoying at the same time. I use social media to talk to my friends which is convenient when we want to meet up somewhere for example. But there could be posts on the platform which could make me feel insecure about myself or make me wish I was that person, and etc…
I think before starting it is worth telling a little background about me. I am one of the first year students of the University of Amsterdam, media and culture.
When the time came to choose a future place to study, I applied to only one university – the University of Amsterdam. When I tell someone about this, many smile nervously. They say that submitting documents to just one place does not sound like the most reasonable decision. No airbag.
But I did it because I really believe in the Media.
I truly think, that it is so essential to understand how this whole media world works, to understand how the entire world works. Cs for today, it’s kinda same thing. Studying Media gives me this feeling of self-realization, cs I feel like a fish in the sea; while analyzing movies, novels, discussing about implicit meanings and philosophizing about society.
I strongly believe, that Media is the main way for people to interact with each other, this is how our world is changing, this is the space that we create around us.
The awareness of immensity grows my love for Media. Because curiosity to learn more doesn’t go anywhere, and the deeper you dive, the more you are drawn in.
I could barely think of anything because the media is recently repelling me a lot.
I hate the anxiousness that I get from social media; I hate the peer pressure from all these talented and gorgeous people; I hate bad news, fake news, and propaganda; and I have a mixed feeling for performative activism…
So is there any reason for me to like media? There must be. I think.
Oh, actually, I can just google it.
Whether I like it or not, whether you like it or not, media is there. It has always been there, and it will always be there.
The fact that you can always find different opinions on media could always help one to see the other perspectives of an issue. For instance, I am a student struggling to develop reasons to like media and write an assignment about it. So I simply googled: reasons to like media.
The research told me that we as humans have a desire for a community and to extend it, that media can strengthen interpersonal relationships, that media can promote better habits, etc. So now I am sitting in my room, eating pasta and typing this blog without comprehensive and practical research on why we should like media. Media makes it so convenient to know different perspectives. One could always argue that the algorithms behind media strengthen the conflicts between people with different opinions because they strengthen confirmation bias by suggesting evidence that supports each user’s belief. However, a person with a decent education and critical thinking skills, he/she should be able to be aware of the fact that confirmation always exists, especially in media. And for them, the media’s function of collecting different opinions (which could be easily found if one actively searches for evidence of arguments from different perspectives) is precious because it is a database fall of new primary sources.
That is one reason that I should like media.
I think there should be more, though.
Hmm, maybe the other reason could be that whether I like it or not, I can constantly update myself about the world via media, and in the meanwhile give the world some updates about yourself. It could be reading politician’s tweets to know what is happening and estimate in what ways our daily life will be different because of changes in politics and get prepared for it (or choose to go against it); it could be posting your art on your social media, so you have more opportunities to be found by companies who want to collaborate with an artist. This can go on and on if you’re trying to find the valuable parts of media.
I guess what I am trying to say here is that, yes, media puts pressure on everyone, and sometimes it can be really unhealthy. However, we might have ignored the fact that media was not designed in the way that we use it today. It is only a source of anxiety if we make it into it. So we should try to learn how to appreciate it and build a healthy environment on media knowing that it is almost impossible for one to completely abandon media and yet still have a comprehensive understanding of our world nowadays.
Finifugal – the want to prolong the final moments of a story, relationship, or some other journey. I have always been hesitant to read the last page, so I made sure to trace out the last sentences with silver. There was a way I could relive the best parts of the story, the wide-open middle. I filmed them. I knew the process by heart: press the record button, export, and save. These were the only three necessary steps to calm down my anticipatory nostalgia. Therefore, the camera turned out to be the first media artifact I truly learned to love. I made sure I always brought it with me everywhere I went with my family, to capture as many moments as I possibly could to prevent any memorable times slip out of my mind. My passion for encapsulating memories only grew stronger, I finally found the way to hold on to the echoes of the last sentence, but there is no story without a villain in it. I guess media happens to be both the hero and the villain of this story. The ultimate fear of all the footage being vanished in a matter of seconds haunted me until I had to accept the inevitable truth. Media is not perfect and, to quote one of my favorite characters, Amy March, “no amount of energy can make it so.” Media is messy and flawed, and if we are accepting it to be an intrinsic part of our culture, we should accept it with all its imperfections even if it means being overwhelmed by the number of emotions it puts us through.
I have been a fan of kpop culture since I was in primary school. I was only nine years old at that time. Media brought music and happiness to my life. When I grew up, during my teenage, I realize how media brought convinence to my life. For example, my idol was Koreans and in daily life, i have no chance to go to Korea to attend some fan meetings or concert. Especially during Coivid period. However, relying on media, those entertainment companies have the conditions to hold online concerts or fan meetings. As for me, it is trully a great news. I can watched the video at home and for only several dollars. In addition, because I love kpop music very much, I can listen these songs on Apple Muasic or Spotify, and several muci platform… In a conclusion, media brings huge convinence , entertainment and happiness for me.
I was born in a digital age, which means we are bombarded with media since we are born. When I was young, the media provided a lot of information to me and made my life more colorful. I can see the beauty of the whole world by surfing the Internet. Some social media like WeChat or Instagram could still make connections between me and my family and friends even if we are a long distance apart. Nowadays, since media become more intuitive and more convenient, we rely on it more than before. I just realized that if my phone is a human, he or she probably knows me better than anyone in the world. I go everywhere with my phone, they know what I like or what I hate, sometimes they could even know what I am thinking. When I feel lonely, I could have a video call with my family and friends, or watch some funny video which could make me feel happy. I remember when I first left my family, it was a hard time for me, I miss my family very much, everything is new for me, and I didn’t even have any friends. But thanks to the media, I could have a video call with my family. Besides, I also used some social media like Whatsapp and Instagram to find people who shared the same interest as I do. We can post our life on social media, so even if we don’t live together or talk every day, We still know what each other’s lives are like and always feel we are tied together.
These are the reasons why I like the media, but I think it is much more than that, the media is so broad, it has penetrated into our lives. I believe that as we continue to understand the media, it continues to improve, we will like it more.
As 50 cent would say, but he’s probably not talking about media. I am. Today’s story will be about this weird love I have for media. The little girl that I was absolutely wanted to have a Facebook profile, when her parents said yes, she was delighted to finally be able to send messages to her best friend and upload photos of her dog. But it became quite toxic, seeing all of the popular girls getting a lot of likes on their pictures, lot of comments. She wanted to be famous on Instagram and was wondering why people were not following her. She was quite shy about sharing her life, but felt really bad to see that she was behind everyone as she came on Instagram, Snapchat as the same time that the girls of her age. She was feeling much much better with films and series because it was fictional people, it’s harder to compare to them. But thanks to media she got closer of certain people and using Facetime to call her friends and parents is clearly a must have.
Media is a giant resource of knowledge, of course this little girl loves media, who doesn’t ? When you live in this capitalist world, you, most of the time, also lives in this media world. This little girl, as growing up, tries to understand it better in order to get the best out of it. Getting the naked wolfe boots that everyone has on Tiktok will not make her a better person (even if they are really pretty we are not gonna lie).
Sometimes she would like to live alone in a cute cottage house in the mountains with a meadow of flowers and a lot of animals. But is it really a solution? Maybe. At the end, does this little girl really need to make a choice? Love or hate, let’s be indecisive, as long as she still put some love in her life 🙂
Why I Heart My Media 