What are you doing right before you go to sleep, or the first thing when you wake up? For most people in my generation this includes social media, Netflix, or surfing the web. Smart phones and laptops are constantly open and giving us notifications of comments, likes, friend requests, and much more. Media surrounds us in the classroom, homework, social media, pass times, and simply stated: our lives.
Within my personal intake of media, I appreciate fine art through photographs, paintings, and designs especially through theatre when I have the change; although, I often find myself consuming poor quality media to fill my time. I routinely tell myself it is my break from work, thinking, or school. Instead of taking a nap that might help me rejuvenate I fill my time with inessential movies, YouTube videos and occasionally social media.
In the past, I have been consuming tons on social media, mostly Facebook and Instagram, largely due to the constant notifications I received from the apps on my phone. Following the prophet’s council after General Conference, I took a ten day fast from social media. Honestly, this experience was very refreshing and freeing. I have now made it my goal to refrain from a lot of social media consumption by turning off notifications and not using it as much. Unfortunately, I do not always use the extra time towards books or serving others, but now I find myself consuming Netflix.
Filling my extra time with Hallmark movies or other simplistic and repetitive love stories, I seem to tell myself not think or analyze this media it is simply for consumption. With the constant use of media in the classroom, my method to “take a break” through media could create similar feelings of inattentiveness while studying media for classes. I have found myself copying an article I need to read for a class into text to speech reader, even though I get very little out of it. With an increase in.
Teachers cannot honestly control student’s media intake outside their class. Yet, they may focus on a variety of engaging material to keep their students invested with the topics and different focus points of each class. I love using media in theatre to help see insight to a different culture, characters life/situations, etc. What I love about the use of media in classrooms stems from the stories we can experience and share.
Since there is so much media consumption throughout students everywhere it is becoming more important than ever to properly educate how to use media for good. As you can tell from my personal example, if you simply try to remove a type of media entirely something else may go in its place. Nevertheless, through education we may help find valuable media to focus on. One of the core principles of “Media Literacy Education develops informed, reflective and engaged participants essential for a democratic society.”
I had similar thing happen to me when I also participated in the ten day social media fast. It was very eye opening to me. I realized how my fingers just naturally go to my social media apps. I also found myself wanting to check all my notifications. I felt very proud of myself for being able to do it but I didn't really get a lot of extra time to work on important things. All that time I had from not scrolling through Instagram I made up for by playing Sudoku. Now, Sudoku isn't a bad game at all, in fact many people see it as a stimulating game. But I wasn't using it for that I just let it fill my addiction. This is something I want to work on, letting go of my addiction and filling my life with more productive things. I want to be more active in my media choices.
ReplyDeleteMelissa, Good engagement with the prompt, and I loved your thoughts about how media can be a powerful tool in theatre to help us gain insight into people, cultures, etc. What does this look like to you? Do you imagine using media as something to use for research? Something to incorporate into the work? Etc.
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