culture

Media Awareness 9/15/2012: Social Patterns

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Continuing my media awareness experiment – essentially watching how I consume media and what I see in media consumption, and what I learn from it.

Since I gave up on cable, I’ve noticed my socializing patterns have changed.  It’s stunning to me how much of our socializing is centered around media – television shows, movies, etc.  Sure this is understandable, but it seems almost dominant, and also seems odd when there’s so much else in life that such a great deal of time is devoted to media.

This also makes me think that, when people study media, we’re often overwhelmed by “there’s so much” and forget to ask “what’s it all for.”  As soon as I began noticing the prominence of media, especially big media, in our culture, the “what for” question kept popping up – and there’s no one answer.

However I think we’re unaware of how much of our lives are influenced or driven by television, movies, and publishing.  At an age where there are more media choices – and more ways to choose them – we may be in some pretty seismic shifts as peoples awareness and choices change.

That also means changes in social patterns.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Media Awareness 9/10/2012 – In The Habit

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My media awareness experiment continues – simply, keeping a journal about what I consume media-wise, and why, and seeing what it teaches me about culture, media, and psychology.

I noted earlier that we’re just saturated with media.  The flipside is that our media consumption is very, very habitual.  Just watching oneself – or others – will make you painfully aware of how we access media habitually, and at times mindlessly.

Sitting down and flipping on the TV just because.  Surfing the web on your phone just because.  Lining up for a film premiere just because.  Watching something just because you do.  We’re putting information into our heads and playing games for no given reason just because we do.

There are doubtlessly good reasons for some of our habits.  I suspect many of them also are the result of larger forces as well, and ones that don’t always have our best interests in mind.  That’s something to address later, but the sheer FORCE of habit really amazed me as I began watching my own media habits.

It also got a lot more amazing as I watched other people.  I not only saw their habits clearly, but how they were like mine.  Very humbling in a way.

Just consider:

  • How often people will schedule time around a particular TV show – even with timeshifting.
  • Watching the end of a series even when it jumped the shark so hard it flew into orbit.
  • Surfing the web on a phone just because its there.
  • Surfing netflix or tv even if there’s nothing on, just searching the channel buffet for something.
  • Lining up for any “event” on TV, games, etc.

As I said, we’re pouring a lot into our heads just out of habit.  I suppose it’s a lot like eating-based habits we may all have.  Note they’re not necessarily bad or destructive – but they are unconcious.

I found myself that I had a lot of time-wasting media habits that had evolved for good reasons – most, interestingly enough, connected to my desire to keep up on news and technology.

Unfortunately, these habits also mean that we’re pumping things into our heads without knowing why – and frankly, wasting time because it’s easy to fill space with media.

We even have new ways to waste time and get new media habits with each gadget, gizmo, and streaming service.

I suspect some of this – perhaps most of it – is really because we’re not used to thinking about or media consumption in any large-scale way.  We’ve got so much of it, so much of it is good or amazing (or at least mediocre) and we haven’t had this much media stuff in all of human history.  It’s not a situation that easily leads us to go “hey, what are we doing here?”

More as I think about it.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

The Rabbit Hole Of Stupid

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You may be late for a very important date, but then something stupid on the internet appears and you become even more late.

The internet allows us to get all kinds of news, information, commentary, and of course, examples of blatant human ignorance and venality.  The latter can come in many forms: it could be ignorant comments on a news article, a story on an excessive idiocy, or an artifact of pure drivel.  Whatever form, it’s distracting.

When you see the stupid, you get curious.  You have to read the comment, then see how people respondent.

When you see the stupid, you have to find out more.  You click the link to read about the latest atrocity of human intellect.

When you see the stupid, you have to face the stupid.  You read an entire article manufactured from delusions and deliberate idiocy just to find out how bad it is.

Then, your time is gone.  It won’t be coming back.  The stupid grabbed your curiosity and absconded with your time, and you helped it.

Anyone can spend hours down the rabbit hole of stupid.  It’s intriguing, fascinating, horrifying, and you have to follow it.  Don’t think I’m immune, my natural curiosity has taken me to some dark places where idiocy shined brightest of all.

I’m not proposing a moratorium on avoiding dumb things; just we be more aware of how we’re easily distracted by them.  If you don’t think this is a problem, then remember you just spent how many minutes reading a blog post on how stupid things can be, so I may have just become part of the problem . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.