Social Media Diet

Over the past seven days I have created a detailed account of what my media intake is on an average day. This varies, because average weekend day is different from an average weekday. However, I was still able to learn something about how I prioritize and how I spend my day overall. I began with a Sunday.

My typical Sunday revolves around catching up on all the homework for the classes that I may have fallen behind on during the week. I started off my Sunday by sitting down to watch a football game. After I grabbed some breakfast and once again sat down to watch a football game. This only led to more distraction as I eventually picked up my computer and started browsing the Internet. I didn’t actually decide to go to the library until about three in the afternoon. My time at the library was for the most part productive, with the occasional distraction on Facebook or YouTube. After finishing as much work as I could I went home and made some dinner and spent the remainder of the evening watching TV.

Overall the weekdays tended to be more productive. I realized that when I kept myself busy, not necessarily with school work, with activities such as exercise or reading I tended to spend less time on the internet or engaged with technology. However, even while completing my daily tasks during the week, I could not help but find myself almost subconsciously checking my texts and going on Facebook at random times of the day. For the most part I repeated a very similar routine throughout the week. I did notice on Thursdays I spent very little time on the Internet or watching TV because as the week progressed I became more tired and tied to go to sleep earlier. Also most tests or quizzes fall on Fridays and therefore I spent more time studying on Thursday night.

On Friday I did not do any homework and as soon as I got out of class I spent more time just hanging out with friends or watching TV, before going out later at night. On Saturday, I woke up late and went to the gym. After I spent about an hour or two doing homework, and the rest of the day was spent either hanging out with my friends or on the Internet.

In the end I came to the conclusion that I spent a good amount of time on the Internet, but not to far off from the average time spent by most people my age. Also despite the fact that I do spend a good amount of time on social media, that isn’t the only thing I use the Internet for. Some times the Internet is given a negative connotation for being a distraction that wastes away your brain. However, that all depends on how you use it. Even though the Internet is distracting for me, a lot of times I will use it to read an interesting article or to keep myself up-to-date on current events. In this case I am browsing the Internet and distracting myself from what I could be doing, but at the same time I am still stimulating my brain.

This new media phenomenon says a lot about the United States, in terms of which direction we are going in the future. It is pretty clear that so much of our daily lives revolve around the use of electronic devices whether for business communication or for social interaction. However, it is difficult to say whether this will have a negative impact on American society in the near future.