Why I Heart My Media

I love media since it allows me to stay connected with friends and family. Everyone needs some kind of motivation here and there and so I use social media to motivate everyone to stay in shape. If I can do it, then so can everyone else 😉

Anthea Ocran

I love (my) media because everything is possible with it. The fact that we are able to reach the whole world from our own bedroom is incredible! As Jim Morrison once said:

Whoever controls the media, controls the mind
– Jim Morrison

And the fun part is, we all control media nowadays: We decide ourselves what to post on social media and it gives us the voice to openly criticize the media that we do not seem to have full control over (but we actually do). The power of media is indescribable and the possibilities are endless.

Marlijne van Tour

Media is a big part of my life. I could go on like everyone talking about how it keeps me in touch with everyone I want to, I can talk to family, friends, etc. But what I really love about Media is how it enables me to zone out for a couple of hours, either whilst listening to music or playing video games. And video games have been a key factor to me growing up with Media and are probably the major reason why I love Media. But it is not only for my personal enjoyment that I play. I play because I can cooperate with people throughout the world, I can team up with my best friends in the same game, no matter how far everyone is from each other, but also – and this has been a key factor- I can actually learn something from games ( History, Art, Programming). So yeah, all I can say is, that through Media and specifically video games, I have managed to find hobbies, friends and even learn some stuff that they don’t teach you in school and could actually be pretty interesting.

P.S.: Stop criticizing people for playing video games, no matter how old they are. They probably just need a quick break from reality 😉

Nick Kefalas

I love my media because I am able to stay in touch with the people I love. I moved to Amsterdam on my own, and left all my friends and family in my hometown. However I don’t have a chance to feel alone because I can still speak to my family and friends through media.

Thanks to media, I know what my dog is doing everyday and it only takes me a few seconds to ask my siblings how they’re doing at school. I can see my boyfriend everyday through FaceTime even though he lives in the UK. I know  my friends are having a good time without actually being there, thanks to Snapchat. I know what amazing places my friend has seen in Dubai thanks to Instagram. I’m even updated on the latest gossip in my hometown, while I’m far away.

I am able to connect with the people I care about on so many different levels. I see photo’s of them almost every day, I can hear their voice whenever I feel like and it’s even possible to see their moving faces. I love my media, because without it, I wouldn’t be able to stay close to them.

Rosalie Bril

I love my media because it gives you space to be yourself. In the real world it is often difficult to truly be yourself because of social pressure or even laws, but on the internet, you can present yourself however you want. If that is who you really are, who people want you to be or who you would like to be. It doesn’t matter because the possibilities are endless. Media have presented us with a new reality where you don’t have to be afraid to speak up, share, like, feel, learn, laugh and love. But most importantly: Media allow us to connect.

Tessel van Oirsouw

Why I ❤ media? It’s simple.
It gives hope to the future, of becoming one human race inhabiting our planet together and not against each other.
Media now may seem like this big-complex-information-data-packed-fun-sort of thing. Something that we use every day for socializing, checking whatever our brain thinks of and feeding our boredom with funny cat videos. Then, on the other hand, we also have this association, that it might become something threatening to our reality, altering it in ways we cannot control or identify. However, in these stirred up feelings towards this thing called ‘media’ hides one vital feeling, and that is unity.

Through media, with that I am especially referring to our glorious internet, we are globally connected. This connection is not dead, but alive and breathing the content we share and growing with the information flow we create.
Still, this connectivity is not yet used to its full potential.

Think about it, let’s take education for an example. It is a ‘product’, completely produced by the human brain. This knowledge has been accumulated over the past decades, centuries and generations. In the contemporary world, we now live in it is growing ever so vastly.
Still, we are unable, as a human race to share it and spread it freely. The potential possibility of doing so does exist, especially now, because the ‘obstacle’ of distance, that prevented us in the past to interact and exchange information, has in some ways been overcome or at least reduced to a minimum. The conventional classroom could already be altered in many ways, for example through expanding the integration of technology much more.
Imagine, ’global streaming of education’. Education is the most important source for the successful growth of humanity. The more intellect we spread the better this intellect can grow and we benefit from it entirely. Us as humans should in a healthy society, proudly spread this creation called education. With media and internet, we could reach the goal, to make it available to a larger, maybe unlimited number of humans.

Furthermore, migration is increasing, thus cultural exchange becoming inevitable. We must learn to understand other cultures and share interests and lifestyles with each other. Media platforms are already supporting this greatly. We are able to see what happens on the other side of the planet, what cultural habits exist and what lifestyles are led around the planet. Let’s of course not forget about the exchange of humor becoming more global in the past decades. The rise of, for example, 9Gag or reddit celebrates and drives the global stream of humor successfully.
Culturally we are still very diverse, but online a different, more united culture and language is being cultivated, especially through the recent generations growing up with this medium and interacting through and with it on a daily basis. Memes, pictures, viral videos and much more all connect us independently from cultural norms and are a language in itself.

All in all, we can agree that the internet has given us, as humans, a free, loud, easily spreadable voice. It’s our choice what we want to say, share and teach with it and how we want it to grow.
Together we have to understand the power of media and choose to use it for social good, rather than fear and fight it. We shape media, so let’s shape it into something we’ll ❤ even more, and ‘not into a nightmare of physically integrated AI controlling our sense of reality and turning us into mindless consuming zombies and maybe extinguishing humanity itself. ‘

P.s Its threatening potential is, however, a great inspiration for illustrations.

So…I love media, because it (still) gives hope to the future that we will choose to shape 😉

– Lea Custodis 

The best thing is waking up with media.

Femke Postma

You have a  group of South Asian individuals who embody principles of Sufi Islam, (a mixture of middle eastern and east asian religions) and present it in the form of blues, rock and prog rock.

The aspects of these aspects could not be more polar. However, their fusion made them Asia’s biggest band in the 80’s and 90’s and has become a very instrinsic part of pop culture for their country (Pakistan).

This fusion could not have happened, had media not provided the tools for exposure that allow new types of art and information to reach different parst of the world and concoct new types of hybrids and definitions of culture and reality.

Symrun Aslam

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It’s been a year and a half after making one the most important decision of my life…switching from an Android to an IPhone. My family members, whom till this day remain loyal to their Androids, declared me crazy and asked if I had too much money to spend. I just thought that it would be more convenient to connect the phone to my MacBook and another major decisive factor… the phone was rose gold. Case closed, no more deliberating and hesitating as I placed my order.  I wasn’t too concern with the gigabytes, pixels or any other feature as a matter of fact because I would use any other smartphone the same way.

Last week my touchscreen wouldn’t respond. The buttons luckily did, so I thought it might be a software problem and tried turning my phone off. I pressed the off button. My phone screen lit up and showed a sliding button. I had to swipe the screen to turn my phone off. “Ahhh, the irony” I thought. I decided to quickly pop into the Apple store and prayed any of these ‘Geniuses’ would be able to magically fix my phone. As I hurried to the store, in my head I ran through all the possible scenarios what could have been the cause of the problem as I tried finding any possible excuse which would masquerade my neglected use. Truthfully, I drop my phone at least once a week, it doesn’t even faze me. However, these ‘Geniuses’ don’t have to know that. “It’s probably a production fault, right?” Luckily, as I neared the Apple store I noticed the lights were still on and saw two employees cleaning the display. “Please be open, please be open” I repeated in my head as my hand reached the doorknob. Closed.

It’s been about a week since I’ve send my phone to the repairing service. The worst thing is, is that I can login and check the maintenance status of my phone, which I do about 5 to 10 times a day. Currently I use a spare Android which belongs to my and allows me to be available the world. However, all of the files, apps, mails remind me day in day out that this phone isn’t mine. All photos, memes, accounts and apps I’ve collected and stored on it aren’t available to me.

I’ve never been the type of person to update their Facebook status every day or vigorously post every meal I have on Instagram. I’ve always considered myself as a ‘quiet’ user. I check what other people have posted, react by liking and following and tagging others into memes or videos that are totally relatable to us and 103.532 others judging from the comments. I rarely post, share, tweet, snapchat, yet this is effecting my daily lifestyle. I feel less included and aware of the people around me. Even though I could do the same things on my laptop, but it’s not the same. It’s not the end of the world and I’m still adjusting so I’ll use this opportunity as a moment of reflection.

Why do I ❤ media? Because it’s a part of me, it’s a reflection of myself. My IPhone is a mirror in which I see everything that is part of me and my lifestyle. All those countless Notes containing my ‘private’ thoughts and grocery lists, the different playlists I’ve created for every mood and time of the day, the photos and memes I conveniently saved to use during my WhatsApp conversations, the notifications from YouTube telling me which videos I should watch. After I’ve poured all that time and effort into customising my IPhone and making it my own, it’s sad (and very inconvenient) to lose it.

To my dearest beloved IPhone, I want to say I’ll treat you with more care in the future and I’ll buy you a screen protector, but habits are hard to break and I know I’ll drop you within the first 3 days as soon as I have you. Just know that this isn’t my intention, so please don’t crash, die or leave me in the future.