Throughout the twenty-five years I’ve spent on this Earth, I’ve learned that the media we consume, both consciously and unconsciously, plays such an integral role in our lives via our perceptions and biases, which in turn shapes our lived experiences. It seems like now more than ever this is incredibly apparent with the advent of the internet and the rapid explosion of digital media within the 21st century. There are many advantages and disadvantages to content being so widely accessible, however, a sentiment I have personally found within myself in recent years is a feeling of being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of media I take in on a daily basis. A strategy I figured I’d employ in order to get a better understanding on the type of media I consume is to create a 24-hour media diary documenting my media habits and to reflect upon my findings.
For added context, my 24-hour day is a bit skewed compared to others, as I primarily operate on a night schedule.
2:30 p.m.: I wake up from my alarm. Similar to many people’s morning routines, I start my day by reaching for my phone. While this is a habit I am not entirely proud of, within recent months I have gotten rid of a majority of my social media accounts, which has helped free up distractions on my phone and boosted my productivity immensely. Upon waking up this particular day, I check my notifications, primarily email and text messages. I am notoriously bad at remembering to unsubscribe from email lists, so a majority of the messages in my feed are junk mail that I have no interest in.
3:30 p.m.: Shortly after doing my post-wake-up afternoon rituals such as feeding my cat and getting a small workout in, I turn my attention towards any obligations I have for the day (chores, errands, social events, appointments). On this particular day, I had to go out and buy groceries. Typically, I have a list of all the staples I need that I adjust according to what I specifically need on this trip. My grocery trips usually consist of going to Winco and Walmart. Before I go, I always ensure to check prices on various items on their respective websites to make sure I get the best deal.
6:30 p.m.: My shift at Starbucks started at 7:30 p.m. tonight, which left me an awkward moment of time where I didn’t necessarily want to get too involved in a project like a homework assignment. Because of this, I resolved to just relax until I had to leave for my shift. In addition to giving my cat attention, I also scrolled Reddit a bit. It’s worth noting that Reddit and YouTube are essentially the only social media apps as I’ve deleted Instagram, TikTok and Facebook in the last few months. Tangentially, one could make the argument my utilization of these apps fall more under “entertainment” as I seldom use the social media functions of these applications anyway. On both of these platforms, I follow a wide assortment of subreddits and independent creators based on my interests and passions, examples of these include historical and philosophical topics, financial literacy and investing, and coffee and cooking content.
While scrolling on Reddit before work, I came across a few interesting posts on the r/ETFs subreddit discussing certain index funds. What I appreciate about this investment community is it doesn’t feel like a majority of the people posting are trying to steer you into a particular investment strategy. Rather, it’s a community full of both long-term investors and those completely new and starting out. Most people in this subreddit community understand that any “advice” given is based off of one’s own personal understanding and that it is imperative to do your own research before investing yourself. A similar investment subreddit I have grown a lot of appreciation for with a similar culture to this is r/Bogleheads, which advocates for long-term investment strategies in diverse index funds. While there still may be a small bit of misinformation on the subreddit, I have found it to be minimal and overall a great, grifting-free community of investors sharing where they are on their investment journey.
11:30p.m.: Nearly halfway into my shift, I took my 30-minute break. On this given night, I chose to spend my break watching a YouTube video that popped up on my recommended feed. The particular video I watched was entitled, “Is King of the Hill The Greatest Revival Of All Time?” by The Roundtable. I’ve never watched any videos produced by this content creator before, but I was intrigued by the somewhat clickbait-y title and because of the fact that I just binged the revival season of King of the Hill the other day and wanted to see the overall reception from the fanbase. The video essay was incredibly well done as far as presentation goes; it felt like a genuine review with an appropriate amount of praising and fair critiques sprinkled in. I can resonate with the content creator’s sentiment about revival seasons of older shows, as I too am often skeptical of when older shows are brought back to the air, as a lot of the magic that made the original series so special tends not to be present (Futurama’s revival, for example). Overall, the consensus for King of the Hill Season 14 seems it lived up to the hype, and I am excited for season 15 next year.
4:00a.m.: After my shift, I stayed a little bit later in the cafe of my Starbucks to get some discussion posts done for my online classes. Both of the classes I’m taking this fall session are MCO classes, which entail a lot of reading through the learning materials and writing discussion posts and blog entries related to the module. This particular night, I was reading through the learning materials for module one of my MCO 425 class, which was discussing the basics of what digital media literacy is and why it’s important to have in our modern day society, as well as having a few example articles attached to read through.
5:45a.m.: Time to wind down and get ready for bed. Upon getting home, I fed my cat and took a quick shower. After playing with my cat for a bit, I get in bed and put on a show from Hulu, mostly for background noise, so I can unwind and get to bed quicker. The show of choice this morning was Shark Tank. No particular reason why I chose this one other than the fact it’s an easy watch and doesn’t require a ton of focus while watching.
My key takeaways upon documenting my media usage for 24 hours was discovering just how varied the type of media I consume truly is. I love learning, especially subjects I’m passionate about, so a large percentage of my media consumption is educational (even during leisurely periods of my day.) Another element that put things into perspective was reflecting just how much misinformation is present and how important it is for one to be on guard when consuming media, as so many sources have an agenda nowadays and try to subtly persuade their audience to a certain side, even when a large percentage of the information isn’t entirely accurate. Because of this realization, aside from being vigilant in our media consumption, I believe the two best strategies to combat misinformation in media is to fact-check and utilize multiple sources, as well as ask yourself, “who created this piece of media and what are their motivations in doing so?” Reflecting upon my media consumption has definitely been a huge eye-opener for me and being more conscious of the media I consume is definitely a practice I will continue to engage with in the future.