MEDIA USAGE:
As is shown in the pie-graph below, I spend an almost
embarrassing amount of time using social media, taking up 37% of my total
recorded hours. This amount of time could be roughly broken into 20 hours of
production of media, and 30 hours of consuming media. Production of media (for
me, atleast) includes writing & posting blogs, sending tweets, and writing
statuses & comments on Facebook. Consumption of media is everything else –
scrolling through tweets and my news feed, reading other blogs, and looking at
people’s photos.
This figure was followed by a an almost equal amount of
time using my mobile phone (calling & SMS), and using the internet for
general purposes such as shopping, watching videos and reading (22% each). So
that whoever is reading this doesn’t think I’m an internet fiend who is hunched
over a keyboard all hours of the day, I’ll also say that most of these hours
overlap i.e. I switch between tabs on my browser a lot.
I have put news in its own category due to the fact
that I only read or watch my news online.
Social – 37%
General Internet – 22%
Mobile – 22%
Online News – 15%
Radio – 1.5%
Print – 1.5%
TV – 0% (!!)
Now, let’s look at this in a bit
more depth…
WHAT: Social
Media
WHEN: Multiple
times a day, average of 5 hours per day (over 1/3 of an average day).
WHERE: My
bedroom, wherever I am.
HOW: My
laptop, on my iPhone
ANALYSIS: In
relation to Facebook, I was on par with the rest of the JOUR1111 cohort - owning
just the one account on this platform (94.7%) , using the Facebook app on my
smart phone (95.4%), and spending the majority of my online time on Facebook
(91.9%).
It’s
interesting, however, to note that if I scroll through my online Facebook
contacts at any one time there are very few people I would consider as my true ‘friends’
– let alone have an in depth conversation with them. So why am I so compelled
to check my Facebook so often? I’ve barely met any of these people in ‘real
life’, some not at all, yet I feel a need to read their statuses, look at their
photos, and wish them a happy birthday when Facebook tells me so. It pains me
to admit it, but I know exactly why this is so. I love to feel included – I like
to be able to say I know who a person is when they are brought up in
conversation, or feel like I’m part of a certain group. It’s embarrassing, but
it’s true.
FacebookAddiction Disorder (more commonly known as FAD) is becoming
increasingly common amongst social media users, with shocking symptoms and
repercussions. I haven’t quite gotten that
bad, but it’s not out of the question. Here’s a beautifully presented Youtube
clip which speaks about what we would do without Facebook:
When
I began JOUR1111, I was already an avid blogger on the Tumblr platform however
I had next to no experience with Twitter and Blogger just like the rest of the
cohort (70.8% had no experience with twitter, 63% with no blog experience).
Being thrust into the depths of these sites was both confronting and exciting –
and this definitely contributed to my social media consumption/production hours
(writing blogs on lectures and interviews, composing tweets). I do, however,
spend a lot of time ‘reblogging’ on Tumblr which also added to my production
hours.
With
my experience of reading blogs and tweets, I personally classify these mediums
as journalism – being used more frequently each day to share breaking news,
information, events and so much more.
WHAT: Mobile
& General Internet
WHEN: Multiple
times a day, average of 3 hours per day each. Internet usage generally in the
evening.
WHERE: My
bedroom, wherever I am.
HOW: On
my laptop, on my iPhone
ANALYSIS: Just
like 44.2% of the JOUR1111 cohort, I own an iPhone which is internet-enabled. I
was sceptical as to whether I ought to include calls and SMS in my media-usage
tally, however upon discussion with my peers we concluded that we really do
find out a lot of information through mobile usage – rendering it highly relatable
to the field of journalism and communication. With the introduction of the
iMessage feature with iOS 5 on iPhone, my text messaging has
skyrocketed due to communication effectively costing me nothing with most of
the people I speak to. During the day, there is not often a half hour that goes
by without me sending a text or making a call. To be perfectly honest, I don’t
know what I would do if I didn’t have my iPhone.
As
for internet usage, I love to discover new things. I love sauntering through
cyberspace finding new and interesting things like this and this. I find out most of my general knowledge through clicking through endless
Wikipedia pages, and have to clean the saliva off my keyboard after I look
through Etsy. The internet is
also great for procrastinating, which probably explains why my usage hours are
so very high. Once I’d set up my twitter account, things became even harder! I
found it really hard to not share every single cool thing that I found online
with the rest of the cohort.
WHAT: Online
news, Radio & Print media
WHEN: Online
news readings averaged 2 hours per day, whereas I only consumed 2 hours of
Radio and Print respectively over the 10 days.
WHERE: News
in my bedroom, Radio on the bus.
HOW: On
my laptop, on my iPhone (News)
ANALYSIS: Realising
that I truly don’t get news from anywhere other than online and the Pulse news app on my iPhone was actually pretty shocking - I didn’t realise I relied on the internet so
much for current affairs. Although upon examination of the JOUR1111 Survey
results, 67.8% of the cohort said that they got their news online – a close
second to TV with 71.1%. On the computer, I draw upon my news from a number of different
sources such as news.com.au, Time Newsfeed, and Sydney Morning Herald. One thing I found interesting about
this medium was that I really only opened up a tab on my browser to read the
news when I’d become bored with whatever else I was doing. I think one of the
main reasons that I have turned to solely using online news is that it’s so
much simpler. For example, if I want to find out a certain issue, I can simply
type it into a search bar rather than trawling through those awkwardly large
newspapers and once again failing at that folding thing that every older person
is so good at. This also points once again to the strong transition between old
and new media sources.
As
for my Radio and Print media usage – this didn’t surprise me much at all. The
only time I really listen to the radio is when it is playing on public
transport, and even then it is usually only music and not news/talkback. This
was consistent with the rest of the cohort, with 53.9% of students listening to
less than an hour of radio each day. Print too, was only regarding music. The
only physical paper media that I interacted with in the ten day recording
period was free publications such as Scene, Rave and
tsunami mag.
Note the key word in the previous
sentence, free.
Below is a
really interesting Youtube clip about the rise of social media, with specific
reference to Twitter and Facebook. Although it is from 2010, it contains some
pretty intriguing information regarding new media and how much it’s taking over
the world. Enjoy!
Overall
reflection:
Some of the
aspects of my media production and consumption did surprise me, however most of
my results were not that different to what I had expected. Having to keep a
media diary made me truly realise the extent to which media is consumed each
day, without thinking most of the time. I wasn’t surprised about internet being
my preferred form of media, however I didn’t really realise I spent so much
time on Facebook!
I also
discovered that I watch absolutely no TV whatsoever, aside from glancing at
what’s on when I pass a television. I think my lifestyle of living with other
students impacts this a lot, and like I said – online news is a hundred times
simpler to access and work with.
Overall, I
felt like it was a worthwhile and interesting exercise that really opened my
eyes to a lot of things. I think it would be good for anyone to consciously
monitor their media use for a couple of days, just to try it.
STUDENT SURVEY RESULTS (requires
Blackboard login)
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