Media is bad?
I personally find myself constantly distracted by my phone. When I put it down, a loud voice tells me to pick the phone back up, but is the use of media as a whole good or bad?
I have an extremely close connection with the current media. One might even say I depend on it. I spend hours a day on my phone, checking snapchats and swiping through Instagram, but I have my boundaries. On days where I have excessive amounts of homework, I know how to put my phone down, which is crucial when trying to stay on task. This mindset or sense of priority is why I feel I am a healthy user of social media. Sure it sounds pretty bad, spending hours a day looking at a screen, but I feel that if you know how to prioritize work and put your phone down, you are a completely healthy human being.
In this day and age, technology and media has become a significant part of everyone's lives. Companies advertise through this media, people are able to socialize in a way that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago, and so many other aspects of life have changed through this use of media. Many abuse this privilege, constantly looking at their phones and never really tapping in to reality. People will listen to you rant while on their phones, which is almost impossible to do and others use media to bully or speak differently than they would in person.
I don't see myself as any of those people. I use the basic Snapchat and Instagram whenever I get bored, but for the most part I feel that I use media productively. I usually communicate with my parents or ask friends about school related issues. While many are distracted from school work due to their phones, I feel that media actually helps me when it comes to academics. My favorite thing about media in 2019 is how easily you can become friends with people or how easy it is to socialize and connect. I think social media has become a huge part of my life and without it, I might have turned out significantly different than I am now.
In the end, I feel that media has become a big part of not only my life, but millions of other teenage lives across the world. It helps to connect people and allows people to interact in a way that was once thought of as impossible. Media influences almost every aspect of my life, whether it be the shoes I buy or the people I talk to and without this media, life would be a lot different.
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I agree with you when you say that we are completely healthy human beings when we can put our phones down when we need to. In this day and age, media is surrounded by us and we don’t have a choice but to accept it. We can have phones and still not be “addicted.” Because we grow up around phones and media, it just becomes a normal to us, but since our parents and adults didn’t grow up with media, it may seem like we are all glued to our phones and media.
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