Why I Heart My Media

Today we discussed about how we live inside of media and how potentially media is used to make a change in real life. Social and mobile media has changed how we keep contact with our loved ones, but also how we meet new people. But does it distort our view of relationships? Tinder and Grindr are both mobile apps with which you can search for a date, a companion or, as many claim, casual sex. Tinder, designed for the heterosexual demographic, was launched quite recently, in 2012, while Grindr, a dating app for gay men, has been around since 2009. Compared to dating and matchmaking sites these apps have changed the perspective since they use satellite tracking and can tell its user if other app users are located nearby. Basically you can browse profiles and rate them with a sweep of your finger on your mobile screen.

Here’s a parody of two guys who take Tinder into real life. There quite a few of these kinds of parodies on YouTube, but I chose this one since it was in my view to wittiest. I think the video illustrates in a funny manner how often there is a disconnect with how we interact online with other people compared to “real life”.

Like all online dating, Tinder and Grindr offer us hundreds of possibilities daily to make snap judgments of other people. There’s been some discussion if these kinds of apps distort our views of dating and relationships and make us more shallow (here’s’ a story on the topic in The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/02/grindr-sex-relationship-intimacy). Grindr, especially, has confronted controversy since it has been observed that some of its users use racist and homophobic speech on their profiles or have set different kinds of racial features as their “sexual preference”. Especially in the gay community which is constantly struggling with issues of tolerance, this has been seen especially insulting and a technology that, at worst, could be encouraging hate speech.

(Jaakko U.)

Today in class we talked about how we live in the media and not with the media. This has consequences in our lifes and there are some points in which we even try to manipulate reality as if it was an online app, a video or an image. It is very common to observe this kind of behaviour in children, who have grown with technology and do not know a world without it.

In order to better understand this, we talked about the video in which a small girl tries to make a magazine work as an iPad. To offer another point of view, here I would like to talk about the Volkswagen commercial made for the 2011 Superbowl:

The video shows also a small child trying to manipulate reality as in science fiction. However, it is not an iPad which he is comparing the car to, nor a smartphone or a laptop, but a movie that existed before all these technologies came to our lives. What I want to say here is that new devices such as smartphones and tablets, and especially the internet connection, have changed our lives and have made it easier; nevertheless, the desire of manipulating reality existed before all those technologies were created. The “digital natives”, that is, those who do not know an analogical world, have just increased their desire of changing reality and playing with it, but they are not the first or the last ones to have it, they just show it in a different manner.

María Hernández Solana

T101 turned out to be something that I would have never expected. Instead of just exploring the different types of media outlets that are available, it made me think about how these media outlets apply to my life. It made me think of how media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and the internet in general affect me personally and shape me into who I am today. I learned about the positives and negatives of these outlets and how I should approach the usage of them. I would strongly recommend this class because it is not only interesting but I think it can apply to everyones life. It is a topic that everyone should be aware of in this time and age.

I found the content of T101 Media Life quiet interesting, finding and discussing possible reasons for wanting to project ourselves a certain way in the media and observing everyone else in the media as well. I feel the point of looking at yourself and our world through media is to see what is real, or what is mediated and therefore, becomes our reality. I have seen how much I am unconsciously using media, and trying to become less of a media zombie this semester, but sometimes it’s hard to tell if I am being a zombie or if I am reaching a pre-distinguished goal. Overall, I believe we, as humans, have become dependent on media and rely on it in every daily situation, but have found our role and that is why it is so important to know why we do what we do in the media.

Rachel Lyon- rllyon@indiana.edu

This class is great because it forces us to take a more in-depth look at media and how it actually affects our lives. Most people don’t realize that media is all around them and that they are being exposed to it 24/7. Through this class we have learned all the great things media can do, like help you connect with a family member overseas through skype, and all the bad, such as media addiction. One of the most important lessons taught in this class is that your media is never erased and even after you die your media “footprint” will live on. It forces us to realize that media is harder to escape than we think it is. We are fortunate enough to hear guest speakers talk and listen to different point of views. I think this class can be summed up in that it gives us new perspective. After this class we should all have the ability to take our minds off of “media autopilot” and engage in media at a more conscious level.

The point of looking at myself and the world we live in from the perspective of living in media is to give understanding to the signifigance and importance that media plays in our everyday lives. Before this class, I never realized or even paid attention to how media was in the world around me. Now, everywhere I go and everything I do, I always pay attention to how media is used and how it affects the situation. I’m more aware now. This has been an amazing class and I will miss it.
~ Chelsea Wilson

Don’t be like Truman.  Don’t live the majority of your life ignorant of media.  Be aware of media; how it works and how to use it for your benefit.  Also, don’t be like Truman and try to leave.  Media can be scary sometimes.  Everything we do on the internet is recorded, and it’s impossible to truly delete anything once we post it, but the benefits of media far outweigh the negatives.  We can connect to anyone anywhere.  We have instant access to knowledge and news.  We can work from anywhere.  Media has become a necessary part of our lives, to try and leave media life would be almost impossible.  It is okay to be wary of media, but the best thing that we can do is to educate ourselves about media: to become aware of it and to know how to effectively use it.

I remember the first day of media life when we took the survey that asked us if we thought media life was reality or not.  I immediately answered yes and thought nothing more about it assuming that of course everything we do is real including things that involve our media.  After experiencing this entire course I now have a completely different view on how media makes us perceive our world.  We now look at everything around us through the eye of media, using our phone for directions, or wikipedia to gain information about where we are going.  Everything we do is now shaped by how our media tells us to look at it, not how we see it with our naked eye.  Media has quickly taken control of our lives to the point that people cry over losing or misplacing their cell phone or laptop because that brief lapse in connectivity drives them crazy.  I now do not see my media as just a device, I know that it is a part of me whether I like it or not.  I recently tried going a few days without my phone and after the 4th day when I turned my phone back on I had missed 15 calls and 37 text messages.  I felt that I had missed out on so much that I had to catch up on when really it had only been a few days and nothing important had occurred.  This just showed me how much I too rely on being connected through my media and how I will never let this fact go unnoticed again.  This class opened my eyes to the importance and role of media in society today and if I had to pinpoint one thing that t101 helps to teach its students that would be it.

 

Jason Warren

warrenja@indiana.edu

When I think about t101, i think of all the different ways Mark challenged my thinking. He truly made me think out of the box on a daily basis. I believe t101 look at media in the positive and negative aspects and makes you appreciate what it has done to us. Many of the videos in class are truly eye opening. For instance, when the little boy from Africa explained a story then at the end it shows that stereotypes aren’t right. I loved that video because everyone watched that and simply waited for the moment until it stated , “please call and donate…yet it never did.” This class was very cool and i am more than glad i had the opportunity to take it.

Well when I think what t101 was about to me, I think that the course was interesting and it furthered, deepened, and informed me more already on my stance on reality and media. I wondered if you could leave media life but it seems like you can’t. You are always connected. There is no escaping media life even after you are dead your facebook ghost becomes a shrine to you. We talked about this in discussion deeply and its interesting that the only way to escape is to destroy it all and move to the woods somewhere,which would be incredibly difficult, but sense we live in a media world the only way we have a effect on the real world is through a virtual one and the real world effects the virtual. Its like this two street that’s kind of a contradiction. An abstract man made up idea like the internet has such an impact on our lives but yet we cant touch it, its not reality. Its seems that these classes of what is real and what is truth is really murky. We can decide whats true, we have a lot of say in what our reality is more now then ever. Its scary and amazing at the same time and if you don’t want to be a part of it well you can’t turn the media life off.

Alfredo Franco
alfranco@indiana.edu