REFLECTION

            Every morning, I wake up at 5:55am to my phone playing Rihanna’s newest song and I don’t get out of bead until I have refreshed and scrolled through Instagram.  After getting dressed, I spend another 30 minutes going through Snapchat or watching Youtube. At school, I take every chance I get to watch another video or play another game on my device.  Once I am home, my addiction doesn’t stop as I go straight to the television to catch up on my 50-minute episodes of my favorite shows on Netflix.  Then, I start my homework, but that does not stop the distractions.  If a notification pops up on my screen my muscle memory keeps me from staying on task.  After finishing an hours worth of homework in four hours, I watch my shows in my bed until I fall asleep to the bright blue light of my screen.  Then, I wake up and do it all again the next day.  

            I easily consume at least 6 hours of media a day and it has taken control over my life. Media has had its leash around my head ever since I was a child.  It has shaped me into who I am today, a girl burdened with the expectation to be someone she will never be and addicted to media, the mother of that burden. Though, as I have expanded my awareness of media, I have noticed how the way brands and big producers use these expectations to make us feel the need to buy their product. They implant that their product is the key to fitting the materialistic standards of society.

            I wish I could say that my media consumption has changed juristically during this semester, while I have been studying media as a whole, but I have only just started taking baby steps to cleansing myself of media.  One of the most important steps I have taken was acknowledging the harm media inflicts and how we allow it to do so.  With my acknowledgement I was able to cut down my usage during and after school. Even though I was able to cut down the hours I spend on media I hope I can do better within the coming future.  

            This semester has also encouraged me to become more literate in terms of media.  Media literacy is extremely important because it allows you to identify the harmful messages brands convey to you through faulty promises.  Obtaining literacy within media is the first step to becoming an educated consumer.  Being an educated consumer is important because allows one to see themselves as who they really are, past the expectations media and brands work together to create.

            Keeping this blog has given me the chance to step back and see that my relationship with media is far from healthy, but it has also shown me that I have the power to change that. Media only has the influence we allow it to have and if we want change, all starts with becoming aware.