Why I Heart My Media

Just as media cannot be defined simply as good or bad, my feelings for media cannot be determined simply by liking or disliking it. The ego in the digital world based on the data uploaded by ourselves can make us either happy or unhappy. In my personal opinion, it’s complicated because the media has permeated our lives so deeply that I feel like I can’t live without it anymore, but it doesn’t always bring us a positive effect in our lives. I sometimes make these considerations when using social media. Are people’s appearances on social media the same as in real life? Sometimes, when I’m using social media such as Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, I perceive that myself in the digital world and myself in the real world are different. To be more specific, when you take a look at the photos posted on Instagram, everyone looks happy, superior, and beautiful. What I observed through this was that social media mainly shows only the images that people want to show to others. People not only just edit or photoshop the photos, but also fake the background, location, and props in order to upload an Instagram worthy picture. I would like to call this the identity of the digital world created by our desires. In terms of the media itself, I think of it quite positively. With the popularization of smartphones in the 2010s and the creation of an environment that allows easy access to the Internet, you can easily meet and chat with friends, acquaintances, or unspecified people online as well as offline, and various things can be shared such as photos and videos. As a result of this, it is noteworthy that digital identity is increasing exponentially. 

Hence, how should we look at the new existence? It raises the question of whether this existence can be identified with the identity of the real world and to what extent this existence will affect the future. First of all, I believe that the identity in the digital world is one’s self and is not one’s self at the same time. Nevertheless, if I have to settle one side, I would like to identify with the identity of the real world and the digital world. Referring to existentialism, human nature is neither indeterminate nor fixed. A person’s essence is determined by how the person lives. In other words, existence precedes essence. Therefore, even if you upload data that is different from reality, that is eventually also myself. Next, I predict that the influence of the identity of this digital world will probably be negative in the future. The greater the gap between the two identities, the greater the risk of exacerbating the situation as reliance on social media increases. To illustrate, the more superior the ‘digital world identity’, the greater the gap between the ‘real world identity’. If this happens, I think that one of the two identities will eventually collapse. 

Media is indispensable in the world we live in now and brings us many advantages and conveniences. In addition, it is a medium that forms ourselves and can bring confusion simultaneously, and it will shape the future world itself, whether better or worse.

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For me media is not Instagram or Twitter or Snapchat, it´s the people on these platforms. I like the possibilities it holds within; for my sake or for others. I would lie if I said that I don´t love my media. The videos I watch, the people I see, the music I listen to. However, what we tend to forget as a society is that these artifacts hold so much power and it makes it so much easier for people to use or abuse their power on the Internet.

Our Media is every-where and we practically live with it whether we want to or not. So, what we see on a daily basis on our feeds goes into our mind and heart. Now depending on what you see and how it makes you feel, you can let it lift you up or push you down. We should never forget that all of these images hold a subliminal message for us that can make us subconsciously believe certain things.

But only when you let that power take over, that’s when you probably should stop and take a step back from it. 

Katharina Trummer, 13775561

Too much to say, fish cannot live without water, I cannot survive without media. Life is hard, media is ideal.

When I was little, I spent almost a full day watching cartoons, TV shows, dramas, and whatever you can find on that television. I always had questions in mind. Why people could be filmed in the television, and their life looks so interesting and so different? Are those things going to happen on me as well one day? Why don’t I have the super power just like the characters on the screen? That is, my parents saw media as “toxic” for children, not because my questions, but for the hours watching, and they carried out strict media restrictions, because media attracts me so much that it distracted my attention from “socialising” around with friends and going to do physical activities. I rebelled, but now I agree with my parents, excessively media use is not good for children at all when I one day got myopia. I sometimes want to query myself- why would you spent so much times on the fake stories that has nothing to do with you rather than hanging out with friends or doing something else interesting? I ended up with: because I enjoy to be in my ideal world.

When I grew up a little bit, I got my first smartphone. I was so overjoyed and proud. In my point of view, only a big person can have a phone like a teacher, business man, or my parents. Therefore, having a phone means so much to me, like an icon showing the whole world that I became a big girl. I explored my phone by uploading apps, some were games, some were entertaining, and some were social software. It brought me a happy mood when I was upset with my school life, or struggled with my homework. It was a way to avoid facing something frustrating in my life, and the media world was what I want. I also chat with some of my unclose friends online. I found I can talk more easily and naturally with them across the screen. Social media became a better place for me to socialise with those strangers.  It made me felt involved.

As I grew older, Media became more and more important to me, and they were still creating a safe, comfort and ideal place. After I became an international student and went over the sea. I met a lot of difficulties, obstacles, and experienced different kinds of frustrating. Therefore, In my spare time, I numb myself by watching lots of happy ended and fiction movies, TV shows and novels, even though I know these can’t happen in the real world. I rely on them, however, I can figure out and separate the real and the ideal, but I really need them for mental healing.

The two of “real medias” I like are the FaceTime and online chatting. They are the only ways to meet with my family and friends. I cannot imagine what will happen without them in my life abroad. Family is my strong backing, and friends in my homeland give me supports. I love them, but I am not able to be with them, whereas media build the bridge between us linking our heart together.

No media, no me.

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Media has helped me tremendously much in my life. This is why I love media.

My childhood wasn’t the easiest, when I was 7, my parents started to have arguments, fights (verbally), disagreements, and hate towards each other. This lasted till I was around 15. Thanks to this, I got a lot of mental stress which is of course not healthy for me. So I needed a way to relieve myself from this, that is where media came in. From watching series on the television to listening to music on my phone, the escape from the stress was media.  Media was not only an escape for me but a way to find entertainment and love as well. Here I made tons of friends online through gaming who are now one the most important people in my life. Career opportunities, I am a pianist and through media, I have made several connections that made it possible for me to perform and be seen. And the most important one of all, I have found love through media. Without media, I wouldn’t have been who I am now, I don’t even know if I would be alive right now. That’s how important the media is to me.

Jackie Mok

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Let me introduce you to a friend of mine, media. I have known him for quite my lifetime now, which does not imply that we are the same age. I see him as a very loyal, knowledgeable partner. Most of the time, always ready to provide me as much of information and advices I demand. Quite selfish, you can argue.

Our relationship has endured quite some up and downs. If I ignore him he will be suffering a low-energy level. Yes, you can say that I am his source of happiness.  If he does something I don’t like, turning his back to me or closes himself off suddenly, I feel very lost because he has become such an important big part of me. I can definitely state that he is an extension of me, if I like it or not. 

Even after realizing that my best friend has so many other friends aside from me and might share my deepest secrets with them. I seem to ignore that possibility. 

Because we all need him. 

Wen Long Chen

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In general, I don’t necessarily use media often. I don’t like to binge Netflix and I don’t keep up with the youtubers I’m subscribed to. My friends even make fun of me, that out of all people, I wanted to study media and culture at university. However, there is something, a specific reason, why I love and hate media, use media, and wanted to study media. Relationships. Or better so, the ability to keep in touch, or not, with people by ‘having’ media.

I grew up mainly in the Netherlands, where I am from, but the last two years I have studied in England. This was a big step, as I left my amazing and comfortable ‘bubble’. My small neighbourhood, where I know everyone and would only have to bike only a small distance to catch up with people. For the first time I really ‘needed’ media, especially social media, to be able to keep contact with my friends from the Netherlands. Instagram and Snapchat, to see the things they are currently doing and by seeing that, not having the feeling I missed something, because I saw it. WhatsApp and Facetime, to have conversations as if they are sitting right next to me. If it weren’t for media, I possibly wouldn’t have kept as many friends as I have from the Netherlands. Now that I have returned to the Netherlands, after two years, I still feel the need of social media, to be able to keep in contact with people. Friends, this time from England, that are a sea away and even my Dutch friends, who study in a different city. Media helps us to be with each other and I believe this is something special. The reason why I love media, and the fact that I have grown up in a time where this is not only possible but is considered normal. Now, losing contact with someone is an option, not a factor related to distance. Because of media, the physical distance between people has disappeared, the emotional distance however, can weirdly enough be enormous. 

Namely, media makes us lose the ‘touch’ with people. Not my friends that are on the other side of the country or world, but the ones that are sitting right next to me. For example, when we are sitting at a terrace, having a great time and chatting about nothing special in particular. The moment I take a sip of my drink and my friend looks quickly at her phone. That ‘tick’, if you will, is why I dislike media. She is quickly looking at what she has ‘missed’ for the past fifteen minutes and replying to some texts. Whilst I’m just sitting there, waiting for her to put her phone down again. I feel distant from my friend, even though she is sitting right next to me. The way in which she is so invested in her phone, that it feels that she completely forgot that I’m even there. How can a phone have that much power? That you feel the need to look at it if you haven’t done so for a while. How can it be that more important to reply to those messages, of people that are miles away, instead of ‘replying’ to the person sitting right next to you. 

Media is a special tool that we can use to keep in touch with people, even though you are a sea away. Media does however hold a special ‘grip’ on us. This makes us distant from each other, as our phone can feel like the most important thing in the room. Media therefore has a love-hate relationship in my heart, but I am overall very lucky to be able to even have this feeling, as media is still to be considered a rather ‘new thing’.

Valentina Berg-Andersen, 13824910

I speak four languages. My first language is Estonian which I learnt partly in school until the age of nine and then tried to prevent myself from losing it by practicing at home with my parents who are both Estonian. My second language is French as I grew up in a mainly French speaking country (Luxembourg) and attended a French school. My third language is Spanish which I’d been exposed to at an early age when my mother put me in a Spanish speaking kindergarten and then I went on to learn it at school when I moved to Spain.  

My fourth language is English and it also happens to be the one I would say I am most fluent in and most comfortable with. I was first exposed to it through TV. My father, working in tech, had managed to somehow get access to American and British TV channels as well as other international TV channels. Luxembourgish and Estonian TV channels didn’t have much for kids back then (if anything the Estonian channels had old Soviet cartoons that you’d already seen by the time you left the delivery room and the Luxembourgish one had cartoons in Luxembourgish which no one actually speaks) but American TV certainly did. The rainy days in Luxembourg were spent watching re-runs of old Disney Channel and Nickelodeon shows. I didn’t care that they were in a language I couldn’t understand because slowly, I started to pick up on it. I was seven and I was watching Victorious, iCarly, That’s so Raven, and Jessie and I was learning, slowly but surely, a language I would grow to love. Then, when I moved to Spain, I started learning it at school and I fell in love with even more. I found it so easy and so natural to express myself in English that I started even thinking in English. If I didn’t know a word I was looking for in Spanish, I definitely knew it in English. If I was writing a grocery list or a to do list, I’d write it in English. If I listened to music, the lyrics would be in English. If I kept a journal, it was in English. If I read a book, it’d be in English. If I were watching a movie, I’d turn on the English subtitles. The English language, much like it dominates media, started to dominate my speech. 

But whilst, I was growing to love English, I was losing my mother tongue. My parents had just given birth to two new siblings and were occupied with taking care of them so talking in general became rarer and rarer. If you’ve ever lost a language, you know, you know how much it sucks, especially if it is such a huge part of your identity. Suddenly, you can’t form coherent sentences and can’t find the words to express your deepest emotions, conversations in that language become a chore and a liability to those who are trying to understand your broken tongue so you just resort to shutting up, the word you’re looking for is at the tip of your tongue but you cannot seem to reach it however much you try, you see words but you can’t seem to actually read them, you thought knowing a language was like riding a bike – you never forget it- until you realise it’s not like riding a bike, it’s more like playing the piano: if you don’t practice, you’re bound to lose it.  

So, though I love media for teaching me my first words in English and I know that the likelihood of me losing English is – thanks to media -minuscule, I still partly blame media for losing my Estonian. I acknowledge how blaming media is somehow denying the part I play in whether I know a language or not. I could simply go to an Estonian course and relearn what I’ve lost but I guess I thought that if media taught me English, it could very well teach me Estonian. Or at least help me not lose it, but the truth is I am not as exposed to Estonian media as I’d like to believe despite me loving both everything media and everything Estonia. I rarely ever watch Estonian films. I never read Estonian literature. I barely listen to Estonian music. I maybe read Estonian news once a week. I never thought I’d be complaining about lack of media exposure but here I am. I guess this proves how powerful media can be, how it can teach you a language unconsciously and equally, play a part in losing one.  

I hope one day Estonian media grows to reach and target the Estonians outside of Estonia who still hold their country dear to their hearts and fear losing that almost dead language. I hope I can play a part in achieving that. 

Rebeka, 13597841

I feel like the title speaks for itself. Recently I have read an article about the signs of a love-hate relationship and even though I have never been in any, I feel like all of the signs mentioned in the article perfectly described my relationship with the media over the years. One of the first signs is “Sometimes you feel they are a blessing in your life”. Obviously, I can frankly admit that the media has always been there for me; when I needed inspiration, when I felt down, when I was angry, when I felt that I wanted to express myself, or even when I just simply wanted attention, which is a human thing we shouldn’t be ashamed of. I feel so grateful that the media gives me  an opportunity to express myself in the way I sometimes can’t in real life, that I can share matters that are important for me with thousands of people, that I can have an influence on people and their behavior, that they make me feel that I do matter, that I can really change the world and how people perceive it and finally that they make me believe that I actually have the power to do anything.

The second sign sounds “Sometimes you just can’t stand them”. I can’t even count the times I just deleted all of the social media and did media detox for a week or sometimes even for a month. Even though they give me so many opportunities and make my life easier, sometimes I find them really tiring, especially when I spend a lot of time scrolling, sharing, posting, downloading, texting etc. It can be sometimes overwhelming up to the point that you lose yourself in it and you feel like you forget about the real world. It’s quite a paradox for me because even though I mentioned above how the media makes me stronger, they at the same time make me vulnerable and miserable. Constantly comparing myself to others, watching other people being successful at the age of sometimes even 17, wasting my time on procrastination and the feeling that it is so hard to say “no” to the media though as much as you try since we’ve all become so addicted. 

The third sign is strictly related to what I’ve written about, it says that relationship is based on “makeup and break up” again and again. Regardless of all of the negative emotions, there always comes a time after media detox that I decide to come back to this mediated life. There’s always this inner desire to be online again and I still haven’t figured out why is it like this? Is it because I am somehow addicted to it or is it because the media has become an integral part of our lives, therefore it is hard to find an escape from them?

The last but not least sign is “You have no idea where the relationship is heading”. We can’t predict where the media are going, what is the future of media, or if we should consider this future from a utopian or dystopian point of view. And I guess we could say the same about our lives since we never know what the future holds, but what I know for sure is that I see media in this future and I can’t imagine my life without them, so can this feeling be described as a sign of true love?

Aleksandra Rzycka- 13903799

This is not a story about how I almost got murdered on my trip through Croatia.

This is the story of how I found love through media.

Earlier this year, I spontaneously packed my stuff, grabbed my best friend and went on a trip through Eastern Europe with her. As the weeks passed, we found ourselves in Pula, Croatia. We planned to stay there for some days even though it was raining. But there`s nothing better to do on these kinds of days than swiping on Tinder, right? To me, Tinder was all about finding new friends and people to hang out with, because during that time of the year it was really hard to meet new people since there was still a pandemic going on. On my quest to find new friends, I matched with this guy on the 8th of April. His bio said that he prefers vanilla over chocolate, which immediately convinced me and made me swipe right (his curly hair was also a factor of course). At this point he was 365 km away from me.

We started texting a lot and I realized that I really wanted to meet him, so I talked to my friend and told her about it. Since we planned to go to the South of Croatia anyways, we decided to make a stop in Zadar, where he`s from. 3 days later we arrived there and I was so excited for our date. Knowing that I was about to meet a stranger from the internet, I had to keep my friend updated by sending her a text every 30 minutes to make sure that, in case I did get murdered, she would at least know right away. However I survived and had the best date I ever went on. After a total of 5 dates, I had to leave Croatia again, feeling really confused. I did not know what I was feeling and why I was so sad to leave when I only knew him for a week. Saying goodbye left me heartbroken and, even though we had talked about me coming back for summer, summer was a long way to go.

Back in Luxembourg I was happy that we kept in touch. While texting or calling each other every day, we soon realized how much we actually liked each other and that we could make this work. After 7 long weeks of only seeing each other through a screen, I took a one-way ticket to Zadar, finally being able to hug him again. I knew that it was the start of a new chapter in my life, beginning with the most amazing summer I could ever have wished for .

I moved to Amsterdam over a month ago and once again it was so hard to see him leave when I got to the airport. But he decided to join me in Amsterdam and while we`re counting the days for him to come, our phones are helping us to make it easier being apart.

For some people the following part might be too cheesy so if you are sensitive to that, consider this a warning. This story is the reason why I love my media. I found someone that helps me grow as a person and makes me feel the best I have ever felt about myself. Without our phones, Whatsapp or Snapchat, this would have never worked out the way it did and I am forever thankful for Tinder giving me someone so special.

Lea Molitor- 13918141

Media are not even that bad

Before sitting down to my laptop and actually starting to write about what relationship I have with my media, I thought that I could only talk about its’ negative side. How insecure those perfect Instagram photos of others can make me feel. How sad I can be when I see pictures of couples out having fun when I am still stuck at the talking stage or not even talking to anyone. How furious I am when people post under the hashtag ‘food porn’ while I am eating my pre-made pizza because that is the only food I can make. How annoyed I can become when I see people doing DIYs while I cannot even draw a stick figure. How sometimes I think that if I had the chance, I would want to live that character’s life from a film or series. All of that is true, sometimes I struggle because media reminds me of my weaknesses.

But now that I have thought about media more deeply, I feel like I appreciate this side of it too. Of course, I was always conscious that its advantages like making communication easier, helping to stay in touch with loved ones, easing regular day-to-day activities, such as travelling, shopping, getting entertainment etc. are present. What I think of right now are the things media draws my attention to about myself. It shows me traits that I am not necessarily proud of, or parts of me (both physical and mental) that I do not really appreciate. It confirms that I am a human being, I am definitely imperfect, I have different feelings, flaws and things can bother me. Without media I would not want to acknowledge these.

Even though not every experience I have had with media made me feel great, I somehow still chose to open that one site or app and look at the pictures or videos that made me feel ‘weird’, to take that one photo while I was crying about something that media generated in me, and of course to send that embarrassing text message while I was drunk. Media helps me to remember that there are times when I feel like hell, and that is completely normal. And ironically reliving those moments sometimes can make me the happiest. 

C.- 13959263