My Media Consumption Habits

This last week, I’ve attempted to be more conscious of my use of digital media—not only in the ways I consume it, but in the ways I add to it. As I sat to make lists of different apps, texts, and videos I frequently use, I realized that I use media very differently depending on my purpose. For the purpose of this thought paper, I am going to focus on digital media, specifically on the phone (though I do consume a great deal of other medias, such as literature).

One of my personal purposes for media use is to keep in touch with family. Lately, my use of Facebook has mainly been to see who is getting engaged and who is pregnant, but I also get to see pictures and posts of and about old friends or distant relatives. I’ve also converted my mother-in-law and both of my grandmothers to Instagram, since they frequently complained that I didn’t keep them updated enough on my life. It is there that I post pictures of the things I do, such as this picture of my husband and I at the top of Angel’s Landing in Zion. While I feel that this form of communication is important, please note my wording—I use Instagram to post the things that I do. While those things certainly shape who I am, I can’t honestly say that I am fully and accurately represented by my Instagram—or by any other one specific form of media.

I also use media to network and advertise. I’m one of the gazillion photographers in Provo, and while I can get decent business through word-of-mouth, showcasing my work allows potential clients to see if they like my style. I also recently created a LinkedIn profile, with which I regularly update my work skills and build “connections” with other people. As much as  love photography, what I really want to do is teach--and I need more than a nice Instagram page to get a job as a teacher. 

Finally, I use media as a source of information. My husband teases me regularly about my horrible sense of direction, and honestly, without the mountains, there’s no way I’d be able to tell you which way “East” is. The GPS on my phone is one of my greatest survival tools (especially when it’s dark outside and I can’t see the mountains).  Another major digital survival tool is Google. As an English major, I Google things constantly. If I don’t understand a historical reference in T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland,” then I can pull up a Wikipedia page for that historical event within seconds. If an article I’m reading mentions a particular work of art that I’m unfamiliar with, I can see it almost immediately. When I’m reading dense textbooks or anything in early modern English, I look up many of the words that I don’t understand. Having such quick access to infinite dictionaries has changed the way I read. When I was a kid, I relied heavily on context clues, because I knew that to learn the definition of a word would otherwise mean I had to get up, go to the office, pull out our 50 lb. dictionary, and flip through pages until my head was spinning. Now, if I’m confused about the etymology or definition of a word, I just ask Siri.

When choosing “appropriate” media for myself, I operate under one major question: “Is this something that I want to have in my head for the rest of eternity?” This obviously stems from an LDS perspective. The book of John in the Bible teaches that the Holy Ghost can bring “all things to your remembrance,” (John 14:26), and Amulek likewise teaches that in the next life we will have a “perfect recollection” of all things (Alma 11:43). Every time I choose to view or read something, I am making the choice to have that image or those words in my mind forever—so I try to determine if things are necessary, if they teach me something, or if it’s worth taking up brain storage space. I’m definitely not perfect at it—I have a lot of buzzfeed articles that I’ll be taking to heaven with me—but I’m trying to be more selective and more intentional with my media consumption and creation.