The alarm goes of screeching in my ears, if I don’t turn it off my it will only get louder. Showing me no mercy it continues to screech. I get up and press the off button while restraining the urge to throw it out the window. I stumble around my room for a while then hop in the shower. I get dressed and find my books to the best of my ability. Grab my wallet, phone, laptop, and ipod and rush to get on the bus to campus. Today is Monday, I hate Mondays. Little do I know that this Monday, one no different than any other Monday, in fact no different than any other day, is going to be filled with media related experiences.
The day gets into motion with me half asleep on the bus. I plug my headphones into my phone and turn on Pandora radio. Simple genius is the only way I can describe Pandora radio. Its great for people who want to be able to listen to their favorite bands, or genera’s, while still discovering new artists. I throw on Sublime radio; a simple one that I know will be filled with Sublimes greatest hits and other chill artists like Jack Johnson. I like to use this time on the bus, filled with people who are still too tired to talk, to gather my thoughts for the day. What do I need to do? How will I get it done? Did I forget my key again? Yeah, I did… The bus arrives on campus while Pandora hits one of its many adds (About 8% of all U.S. advertising is spent on radio spots alone) (M&C 136), I find it almost bad luck to end on this note so I keep my headphones in for one more song, Jack Johnson’s sitting waiting wishing. Which actually has one of the coolest music videos around. (I suggest watching a video in which they play it backwards to see what actually is going on)
I go to my first class, its fairly uneventful and I jump on the Internet for a few seconds to check Facebook, nothing interesting. I focus on the class again; it finishes rather quickly putting me in a good mood. I head over to the café to grab lunch or even just a late breakfast. There I nobody there that I know so I sit alone, normally this would bum me out but I have a special edition of Rolling Stone magazine which has the top 100 Beatles songs in it. (Rolling Stone Magazine is a leisure magazine and is considered to be the greatest superpower in the music category) (M&C 298) I read the first few songs on the list, then skim, the rest. I find my self-debating with the magazine as to the rating of certain songs. I really enjoyed this experience with the rolling stone magazine. I’m normally not one to read magazines because I usually have so many other things going on / things I would rather do. The only complaint I have is that the magazine started off the edition with the #1 song (a song that I would have liked to read up too building suspense. The #1 song is a day in the life. I feel that this is a little creepy because that’s pretty much what this is all about right now. A day in the life of Peter Chadwick.
After lunch I have sometime until my next class so I head over to the fire side lounge and get a nice seat that allows me to look out at the mountains while still being able to se and hear the TV which usually has the news on it just incase anything interesting comes up. I open my laptop and open up Facebook again still nothing. I bought a song from iTunes (Mp3s hurt just as much as they helped the music industry, because once the song was digital it could be put online and stolen) (M&C 97). Then I did something I haven’t done since before I left for college. I open up garage band and start to play around. I have always like garage band because the loop station is a lot of fun for making different songs. I like this so much because making the songs is almost like a puzzle, because you have to use pre-recorded loops to make a song. I usually just play around trying different combinations of loops to see if there is anything like. This time was pretty unsuccessful but it was nice to play around in garage band again.
I now head over to our media and society class, on the way I always grab the free New York Times, it is a habit I have had since high school. Normally ill just skim it for interesting articles. This is probably the most important medium I use when it comes to obtaining information. It’s my number one news source. I find the articles to be informative and interesting. The writing style stimulates my necrotex, which is good because I should be thinking about these articles. There are two reasons why I should be thinking, one is because these are important events in our world, and if I’m going to talk about them I need to make sure I have my facts straight. The other, and in my opinion the more important reason I should be thinking about the articles deals with our discussions of Public relations. I know now that I need to not only analyze the text for information but for truth. (PR professionals are criticized with creating so many stories that its at the point where PR is overwhelming journalism) (M&C 402) It’s really an question of OWNERSHIP. Who would want me to believe this and why? I ponder this for a short time. Then class starts.
After class is over I run to the bus and get on, as I sit down it pulls away. This time I throw on my ipod and just listen to a couple of songs to kill time on the ride home. Once I get back I turn on the Xbox and start playing skate 2 with my roommates. It’s a skateboarding game that is completely different than the popular tony hawk. My roommates and I will sometimes get really completive but usually it serves as a nice time to relax and talk about our days. In fact if it wasn’t for this daily ritual I feel that I wouldn’t be as good of friends with these people. On an interesting side note controllers are actually being made that use your mind as the controller by analyzing brain activity. (M&C 37)
After about an hour filled with laughs I decide that its time to do my homework. This is the part of my day where I use the Internet the most. While my teachers would like to think I'm looking up links or blogging on my blog I'm probably Stumbling around or on Facebook, I mean I can’t help myself when I find the urge to talk and catch up with some friends on face book or explore some cool sites on stumble. Although these two sites are always open in different tabs on my computer I find myself using my addiction to the Internet to learn. Its simple things that range from checking the weather in my hometown, to reading an article on CNN. The Internet truly has a profound effect on my. I find myself constantly checking things such as Facebook, which was founding in 2004 and by 2007 had a market value of $15 billion. (M&C 53) It makes me wonder if I should really have a Facebook and is it something I need. The conclusion I come to is, while I may not always enjoy the fact I spend a fair amount of time on Facebook, it is almost a necessity for staying n touch with people because everyone is on it. I feel that social networks will forever be a part of our lives even if they don’t stay on the Internet. The reason? It’s too effective at letting us stay in touch while also feeding our nosey sides. Think about it, if you really use Facebook on the daily you’ve probably ended up looking through someone’s 1,752 pictures simple because on your feed you saw ONE that interested you. Getting back to my day, after my time on the interne I get my homework done and then eat dinner.
After dinner ill usually watch TV with my roommates again. Tonight we will watch some Monday night football while snacking on some food. Football is a very media controlled viewing experience. Everything is an advertisement because the field is plastered with ads and everything is “sponsored by” or “brought to you by” you can’t get away. I mean the super bowl is watched by people more for the commercials, than for the game itself. (Source Here) I guess what it really comes down to again is OWNERSHIP. Its football is practically run on advertising. In fact most people don’t know that the NFL will take “commercial timeouts” during the game. It almost bothers me a little that our country runs on selling things, even if it’s just a simple idea. Overall I feel that TV is a little to dominated by commercials and advertising all together. Thankfully we are somewhat protected when it comes to commercials, for example the government has banned the advertisement of tobacco products via television. (M&C 369) One could even say that because of PR agencies the Nightly News is just as much advertising as the commercial breaks.
Later in the night my roommates and me have another thing we tend to do. We usually watch a movie. Thanks to Netflix we have a huge library of movies to pick from. My roommates, for some reason, decided that we were going to watch Human Centipede (Click the link at you own will.). I refuse to talk about this scarring experience so instead choose to just analyze my relationship with movies. For me, movies are some of the greatest things ever. I feel that they can convey emotion far better than a lot of mediums. I love the way the story is told in the sense you are actually apart of the experience. You get to be side by side with the hero. You can almost form bonds to the actors and actresses because you know how they feel because personal moments are displayed for you in a way no other medium, excluding books, can. On an interesting side note…as I said earlier the new technological shifts in our media has had a negative effect on music, the interesting part is that the movie industry has really only seen positive effects from the new invitations. (M&C 237)
After the movie I needed to calm down and do something to take my mind off of the horrors I had just laid witness too. This idea of using a book to relax is actually why books are so popular. The ease of being able to take it almost anywhere makes it very marketable to everyone. (M&C 315) So I grabbed a book. Being that I wanted to read a story but was still un satisfied by a good movie I decided to grab The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Now before anyone who has read the books and have seen the movie try to verbally massacre me, I get it. They’re different. I just wanted to have a base on to where my imagination to build and wander. I guess I actually created a NOSTALIGA feeling for myself, thus selling the idea of reading it to myself. In the end I can fall asleep because my mind is so active on all three levels that it’s so easy for it to wander around forever, which allows me to slip into a dream.
All In all I guess I never truly realized how much our media is a part of my everyday life. It really shows you that it’s important to truly study and understand how our media works, because it has so much control over your life. It will most likely influence the decisions you make. It will help to choose how you present yourself. It changes how we communicate with others. It will do good people bad, and bad people good. It is media, and the media is us. Isn’t it start time we learn how to take care of ourselves?
