Analysing my media usage-Part 1

For the first assignment studying media audiences, I am beginning with analysing my media usage. To do this I am going to create a record of all my media usage, that I engage with actively, not passively over the space of three days (Friday 26th-Sunday 28th). By doing this I will be able to analyse an average three days’ worth of media activity and also possible compare it to others, being able to further look into age/gender differences in media usage.

With the media growing every day and more and more formats of the media being released and technology surrounding us it becomes hard to define- what is and isn't media and what's worth logging and not logging. This is the first issue I am faced. It would be almost impossible to record every piece of media I encounter, such as checking the time on my phone or unlocking it to respond to a message, as I do this frequently every day. Therefore I need to be strict in what I can and cannot record. I am only going to record media usage that I take into account and think about, such as advertisements that I think about afterwards I will note. But advertisements that I ignore and don’t digest I will not add to my record, as TV and social media are crammed with advertisements today. I am recording all media I actively take in and think about, such as social media, emails, TV, streaming etc. By doing this I will be able to accurately analyse my own media usage. From my perspective I think that media surrounds us every day and would be nearly impossible to record every ounce of information, therefore taking the critical pieces of my activity to further analyse are more important to study, rather than gathering endless records of media usage that doesn’t serve a huge purpose in my everyday life. I am going to record the data as I go along on my notes section on my phone, therefore collecting all the information so I don’t forget when it comes to writing it all up later. The information I am collecting is: date, time and duration, text, channel/site/publisher etc., company and the purpose served.

I feel that during the assignment as I am monitoring my own media usage and activity I will need to be harsher on myself, to make sure I record everything as best as I can, including all my social media usage, embarrassing as it is. Due to this I possibly might not going on social media platforms as much as I usually do, due to be embarrassed of the amount of time I waste on my phone daily. However I will try my best to be critical on myself as not to affect my results on my self-assessment. I feel to create a complete clear picture I need to be critical on my usage. I feel the information I gather will create a rough idea of my day to day media usage, which I believe many others my age will have similar, if not more, media activity. I also think after doing it for three days I will be able to look over and analyse my results and become critical on myself and maybe consider using less media or possibly other formats such as print media, as I already know I do not partake in much of this sector of the media. After the three days I will update with another blog post further discussing how it went overall.