My Media Fast - vlog with my experience of and thoughts on the media fast

This is my vlog with my experience of my media fast and thoughts about the consequences of my media fast. The video is also on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tT23ctb5VQ&feature=youtu.be

My Media Fast - doing the assignment

On November 6^th I had my media fast. I fasted from all unnecessary new media use. This meant no use of my phone, my computer, my TV and my radio. I had decided, that I really wanted to try and stick with my fast, so I notified my job and my parents beforehand, that I wouldn’t be reachable this day (unless in absolute emergencies). Other than that, I didn’t notify anyone, as I would like to just disappear and see what happened.

I got up at 7, and on a normal day, the first thing I do is turn on the television. This is on while I check my phone from messages, emails, news and Facebook-updates. It was really hard for me to just get up without turning on my TV or checking my phone. I had logged out from all social media platforms, but as I got out of bed, I heard that I got a text. This drove me crazy. I hated, that I knew that someone tried to contact me, and that it would be 24 hours before I had the chance to reply.

I went to the shower, and all I could think of while in there were the fact, that I couldn’t reply to (or read) the text I got. As I was getting ready for the day, I noticed how quite the apartment was. Normally I have my TV on, and sometimes this is muted because I’m also listening to music. This day was just totally quiet. However I finished getting ready in much less time than usually because there weren’t any distractions.

I spent the morning studying and at 11 I had to leave for work. I had decided that I would go without my phone (because it would be pointless to bring it as I couldn’t use it), and this was definitely the hardest part yet. Leaving my phone at my desk felt like going out onto the street naked. I cursed the whole way to the bus stop, because normally I would listen to music or podcasts, but that wasn’t an option today, and I was already bored. The 25 minutes bus ride felt like it took forever. At one point I was the only one in the bus that didn’t wear headphones, and that made me curse at the assignment again.

The four hours at my job flew by, and before I knew it I had to go home again. I decided that I wanted to do something else; because going home would definitely mean that I would be bored to death. So I went downtown to look around and maybe do some shopping. Walking around downtown I once again missed being able to listen to podcasts and music. I found myself getting really annoyed with people who wore headphones. I didn’t feel like they were paying any attention to their surroundings or were considerate of other people. However I experienced that the staff at the shops were much more smiling and accommodating than usually, and I wondered whether this was a result of me also being more smiling and accommodating towards them than usually when I’m wearing headphones and walking around shutting everything else out but my own thoughts and the music/podcasts.

I went back to my apartment at around 6 and made dinner first thing when I got home. Normally one of the first things I do is turn on the TV, but that wasn’t going to happen today. Once again the place was really quiet. None of my roommates where home, so I had nobody to talk to. I ate my food in complete silence. I struggled to resist my desire to go into my room and check my phone. But I didn’t do it. After dinner I studied some more, but I felt a bit tired, and I couldn’t concentrate properly. I played some solitaire with some cards, but that bored me too. Next I wrote a letter to a friend because I don’t like the fact that no one write letters anymore, and I know she’s really appreciate getting a real letter and this seemed like a good opportunity to do so. When I finished the letter, I picked up the fiction book I’m currently reading (A Clash of Kings), but which I’ve been neglecting due to a lot of readings for school. I read in that for a few hours and actually quite enjoyed that – though I was still really quite bored and missing my TV and my phone a lot. 

At 9.30 I decided going to bed. This was really early for me, but I just couldn’t think of anything else to do. I went to bed thanking God, that this was only going to last for 24 hours and that when I woke up, I could turn on my TV and check my phone. As I was drifting off to sleep, I got a text again, and it took all my strength to not pick up my phone and check it. But I didn’t, and I felt very proud that I lasted all day, without breaking my media fast. It was a tough day!

When I woke up the next day I felt like a child on Christmas morning. I was very excited, and I instantly grabbed my phone and checked it. I had texts from 2 people (2 from each), 15 emails, 1 Snapchat, 1 Facebook message and 2 Facebook notifications.

Tracking my social media use: Vlog with my thoughts on birthday greetings

I made this Vlog with thoughts about birthday greetings as I found myself posting a birhtday greeting on my friends Facebook wall and afterwards sending her a birthday text.
My video is also on Youtube:

http://youtu.be/2hZ0lFVetAU

Tracking my social media use: My discoveries

The assignment said to track our social media use for 48 hours. Therefore my use of internet is not all tracked. When I searched Google, read the news, watched series or movies among other internet activities it wasn’t tracked.
I tracked my use of social media; Facebook (Julie Danielsen), Instagram (juliedanielsen_), Twitter (@JigsawJulie) and Snapchat. I also decided to track my use of school related social media; My blog, PB-works (the platform we use on my Digital Identities class), pages-tdm.au.dk (the platform we use for my Business- and crisis communications class) and AULA (the platform we use for my Digital Economy class). Furthermore I decided to include my Hotmail account as I also communicate with other people via mail.

In the tracking period (48 hours and 20 minutes) I was online on social media for 3 hours, 11 minutes and 8 seconds with a total amount of 115 entries. This means I logged on at an average of 2,37 times an hour and spent a total amount of 6,5% of my time on social media. I was actually surprised that it wasn’t more. However I did notice, that as the day went by, and I got a little exhausted by the entire note taking, my use of social media decreased. I’m certain that I, even though I wasn’t aware of this, subconsciously failed to log on my social media accounts in the evenings due to my getting sick and tired of doing the notes. Normally I find that I in the evening often watch TV and engage in social media at the same time, and therefore the lack of engaging in social media in the evening makes me wonder. However this was also Cut Cancer week on TV2, and they had a lot of documentaries about people with cancer, that required and captured my attention more than the other programs I usually watch, e.g. Robinson.  Only 8% of my engaging in social media was school related. This number probably ought to be higher, but I comfort myself with the fact that I didn’t really expected anything to happen on the school related social media sites in my tracking period.

Facebook was my favourite social media. 53 out of 115 entries (43%) were on this media. I kind of knew this already. However a lot of the activity on Facebook is Facebook messenger, which I use to communicate with my classmates and friends. Most of the other social media platforms came in rather close. I used Hotmail 20 times, Instagram 16 times, Snapchat 12 times. I only used Twitter 6 times, which isn't surprising - I'm still trying to figure out if that media is for me.

I found that my engaging in social media occurred at all times and places. Once during the 48 hours I logged on in my bed during the night after I went to the bathroom to pee. Most of my engaging on social media was done on my iPhone (87%). I carry my phone with me everywhere – and I truly mean everywhere. Thus 7% of my engaging on social media occurred in my bathroom.  As I share an apartment with two others, I spend a lot of my time in my room, both when studying and when watching TV. This is also reflected on where I am when I engage in social media – 59% was done in my bed. 

I thought that doing this assignment was really fun. I discovered some things about my social media use, that I never considered before. This assignment made me think about how, when and why I use social media. I was very surprised that I logged on during the night once. I did this without even thinking, meaning that it probably wasn’t the first time. I just never gave it much thought before.

I recommend everybody to try tracking your social media use – I’m sure you’ll be surprised.

Screenshots from my social media use during the 48 hour tracking:  

Snapchat from Mai-Britt in Cambodja

Facebook message from Katrine

Instagram news

Posting a birthday greeting on
Anine's Facebook wall

     

Tracking my social media use: My tracking plan

In this blog entry, I will considerate how to best capture my social media use for 48 hours. I spend a lot of time on social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, but I have no idea how much. It will be very interesting to find out exactely how much time I use/waste on these media sites. I primarily use my iPhone to visit social media sites, and sometimes I do it without even thinking about it. I just automatic click on the app icons on my smartphone.
Later on I will be fasting from all unnecessary new media for 24 hours. This will be a great challenge for me, as I, like mentioned above, just press on the app icons on my iPhone, so I really have to think about not doing that. I will try to fast from everything.

My 48-hour tracking plan

From tuesday October 22nd 9 AM till thursday october 24th 9 AM I will track all my media use.

To do this I will note all my social media use. Since I primarily use my iPhone, and often use social media while I'm out and about, I will be noting all my social media use in my research journal which I bring with me at all times. I will make a system where I note the following:
- The social media I used (e.g. Facebook)
- The time the engaging in that particular social media started and the duration of it.
- The purpose of it ( e.g lurking, updating, checking up on my reading assignments for my classes)

During the 48 hours I will also be doing braindumps with my thoughts about that particular visit to the social medias. I will at least do five braindumps: One each morning of the period and one each evening of the period. I will definetely be doing it at these times, since I have a feeling these are the times I spend the most time engaging on social media. I will also be doing a braindump at a time where I am using social media at other places than my own home, e.g. in a bus. In this braindump focusing on why I feel the need to use social media in that particular situation.

I will also be taking screendumps of my social media use. These might come in handy later, when trying to remember a particular situation on Facebook, and they will probably help people understand why I have certain thoughts at a certain time.

During the 48 hours I will also videotape my social media use to create a Vlog(s). As i primarily use my iPhone, I will do this with a small digital camera. It is going to be a challenge videotaping everything, but I will do my best - although it might be difficukt juggling both iPhone and digital camera on e.g. a bus. But I hope that during the 48 hours I will develope skills at doing this. I will also be videotaping some of my thoughts - video braindumping you might call it.

My 24-hour media fast

My media fast will be from wednesday November 6th 9 AM till thursday November 7th 9 AM. I've chosen this day because it is a day where I have nothing planned, except for reading for my classes. I would like it to be a day where I would normally be spending a lot of time on social media to challenge myself the most.
I will be logging out of all my new media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, mail acoounts etc.) on both my iPhone and my computer - that way I won't accidentally log on during the 24 hours media fast.
I would like to just dissappear from social media to check how people react to that - if they react at all. However I will need to notify my job, because they often contact me by mail.

Online at all times

For the past week, I have been enjoying the fall holiday with my family. 10 people from the age of 12 to 79 in a beach house on the west coast of Jutland. Challenging at times, but mainly a very good break from everyday life. However, it sometimes felt as though we might as well stay at home in our separate rooms.
All in all we brought 10 smartphones, 5 computers and 1 tablet on vacation. School, work and an addiction to social media and online gaming such as World of Warcraft and League of Legends filled us with the need to bring all those devices. We had to be able to be online and our classmates, colleagues, game-mates etc. had to be able to contact us. Most of us found it shocking, that we brought that amount of technology and that the need to stay online and reachable were that severe.
At times I found myself sitting in a room with 9 other people in complete silence. Apart from my grandmother (who were reading) and my mother (who were knitting) all of us sat with either smartphones or computers chatting with friends or posting updates about our family holiday and thereby maintaining our digital identity (showing how much fun we have with our family!).
I wonder if the amount of technology that we bring to our holiday will increase in the future, or if the 10 of us have reached our max - I highly doubt this is the case though.

Screening of digital identities

Since beginning my Digital Identities course at Aarhus University, I’ve found myself considering my activities on the social media platforms a lot more than before. Every time I log on to one of my accounts I look at the posts and updates from my friends with my mind on what they are posting and why. With my close friends I find myself considering how their digital identities are different from their real life identities. It is clear, that some of them only posts certain things and have a sort of a theme in their post on for instance Instagram. Some of them have kind of a “fitness” profile and others have a theme of pictures about their lives. Loooking at that I wonder why they choose that, because even though the one with the fitness profile do care a lot about health, it is not the most dominant thing in her life, so I wonder why she’s chosen that.

During Facebook’s first years a lot of focus was put on to the privacy of it. A lot of people warned about the fact that using Facebook and posting certain things could lead to companies not wanting to hire you. Drunken pictures and status updates about very personal things should not be online where everybody could see it. This might have affected the way people from the first Facebook generation use the social medias and screen what they post and make a part of their digital identity.

With two younger cousins at the age of 14 and 15 it is clear to me that a screening process about their posts and updates do not exist. They update about broken hearts and losing their best friend to someone else. Maybe this happens because they are a different generation, a generation that doesn’t remember a time without Facebook, or maybe it is because they aren’t considering what consequences their digital life can have on the long term – if any. Because as the social media platforms develop and become a part of everyday life and everyone is adapting to the digital life and world, the consequences, if there has ever been such consequences, might not be very high. A digital generation grows up, and as I see it, their digital identity is very close to their real life identity. They post and update more frequently and they post and update more personal things. It is yet to be seen if a screening process about their posts will occur later in their life, and their digital identity at that point will differ from their real life identity. But right now I see those two identities very intertwined.

My digital identity

This blog is a part of my Digital Identities course at Aarhus University. I will be posting thoughts and exercises about my digital media use and my digital identity. I'll be back soon!