Entry #9- The Good and Bad of Media

 

Hello and welcome back!

Have you ever noticed how deep you get into social media that sometimes you forget that you need to eat? Not just social media but also video games? Once you are deep it's hard to pull away and remember that you also need to meet your personal needs. Media has always been around and with improvements to technology over the years, we take media to school and work and has become almost every moment type of thing. Media has definitely impacted my social life and the time I spend with my family. I have slowly gotten lost and lose track of time once I open an app on my phone and only want to focus on what’s going on there.

Media can be good as well if used for specific reasons. I once had issues trying to understand how to work out a math problem because the way I was being taught wasn’t working out for me and out of curiosity, I looked it up on YouTube and TikTok and wouldn’t you know, there are different ways others have explained it and it worked for me. Another good way media can help is learning new hobbies. Crocheting can be taught over videos and also googling patterns and ideas of what you can make next. Cooking is also another thing you can pull up. I learned a lot of different recipes on these media platforms.

The bad would have to be the time lost watching videos or looking up things rather than going to family and friends who may know how to do the things you want to learn. It takes away from the interaction with people and family. Another bad can be the fake news that people put out that can cause stress in some and conflict in others. Some media platforms are biased and unless you know how to point out this biased news, you would almost believe that there’s a lot of horrible, or good, things happening.

Video games are addicting, and also easy to lose track of time. One minute it’s only 2pm and the next, it’s 4am and you haven’t eaten lunch or dinner. Once you are on a roll it’s hard to pull back and there are somethings that can help remind you that you also have needs. Setting screentimes on your phone can help break you away and rest your brain. An alarm set to an hour or two can also help break you away and remind you that you need to eat or use the restroom. I am starting to set screen times on my devices and set my phone down to enjoy my right now moments and not let it take time away from my family.

Media is media and it will be around for many more years to come. It’s up to you if you will let it suck you in and lose out on real life moments or be a part of real-life moments. How will you break away from media? Until next time, bye!