It's the 21st century.Which means that in a few years, not having the internet will be a mortal sin, and people with flip phones will be the outcasts. So, I'm here to ask you, are you a media junkie? What type of media do you use the most? Why? There are so many ways for people to get in touch nowadays, it's hard to keep up. With things like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter (which I still dont' quite know what it is) you can talk to people in other towns, states, even countries like they were sitting right beside us. I experienced this when I got to video chat with a friend of mine who was living in Barcelona for 6 months. It's amazing how much we've accomplished in the last twenty years. Text messaging. It was amazing, but at the time not necessary. It was like, why would I type to someone I can just call? But now, in 2009 not having text messaging on your phone is unspeakable. Instant messaging. What is that? It blew me away the first time I heard about it. Now that it's available on phones, as well as e-mail, schedules, and all the jazz, even computers are becoming obsolete. The moment people can type a term paper on their blackberry's, Apple and Toshiba need to come up with something good or they are going to be in some serious trouble.
For me, text messaging is my weakness. I no longer feel the need to call people. It's not that I don't want to talk to people (well, most of the time) but sometimes it's just...easier. Literally, when it comes down to the time it makes no sense why text messaging is easier, but I don't know. Perhaps the jury is still out on that one. But, I mean, we live in the world of multi-tasking, and perhaps that may be what's wrong with the world. But, still, media rules our lives. There really is almost no way to avoid it. I mean, you'd have to be a Morman and believe technology is evil. Not that I'm dissing Mormons or anything. To each his own.
In the 21st century it's hard to pretend like these things don't exist. Whether you spend hours Facebooking or all day without calling a single person (but you've texted everyone in your contact list), media is ruling your life. Not that it's a bad thing. I mean, come on. I did write this blog.
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I am not going to lie, I am a closet facebook addict! I find myself on facebook atleast 2-3 times a day to comment on my friend's stupid photos or join some lame club. I definitly think facebooking and similar forms of media (i.e. myspace,livejournal) has had an effect on this generation in a positive and negative way. The positive is that it allows friends to keep in touch that live far away and establish an "online community" but the negative would have to be the creepers who stalk people on it as well as people spending time on the site via their cellphones while they should be driving!
ReplyDeleteMedia junkie....media rules our lives.....I want to challenge the use of language like that over the course of the semester! I don't think media usage is like heroin usage, and I don't think media rules me--and I don't think it rules you either! I "know what you mean," but I think if you think about those words, and what I'm saying, you'll agree with me! This to me is at the heart of the mass communication vs media studies question I posed this past week on the D/Boards....
ReplyDeleteThe blog looks and reads great! Just getting all philosophical on you on a Saturday evening....
You may have a point there, Bjorn. You just may.
ReplyDeleteYou are very right! I mean imagine growing up when your grandparents did or even your parents?? It is hard to imagine what they did during the day without the computer, cell phone, and television (or at least satellite!).
ReplyDeleteAnd, it is kind of sad in a way to think my main communication usage is via text message. When my phone actually rings, I kind of get nervous and especially if I don't know who it is, I let the voice mail get it!
I completely agree! While I don't think that I'm necessarily a "media junkie", there are days where I'll spend hours at a time just browsing the web. And I won't lie...a good amount of this time is often spent refreshing my Facebook page, just waiting for new comments or stories on what my friends may be up to. It's such a bad "addiction"!
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine growing up in a time when we didn't have the internet or cells phones...I feel so bad for my parents and grandparents although they didn't know what they were missing when they were missing it so alls good for them i guess...now they have to get with the digital age and we are teaching them things now! but I text way more than i talk on the phone! now we can have conversations with people with more than one technology i might add...without even speaking with them! this might be a breakdown in how we all communicate with one another and socialize...i guess only time will tell the effects!
ReplyDeleteJust wait.. in two years, everyone is going to have video conferencing on their phones. A few high-end smart phones are starting to have cameras built in to the front to enable video chatting, and once this starts to work down to cheaper phones (and the cell phone companies continue to deploy more 3G internet), it will become mainstream.
ReplyDeleteI haven't even gotten to the flip phone stage yet.
ReplyDeleteI think I use Facebook the most. I purposely haven't gotten it on my phone yet though, because I think of status updates ALL the time, so I would ALways be on there...and I just can't do that to myself, lol.