Reflection Paper- 11/22/2020

January 22, 2020

The Ending

Hey people, welcome back to the blog, with your favorite blogger, Noelle. Over the course of the past few months, I have gained lots of knowledge of media and its effects.  In learning things about media, I have looked over the roles that media has played in my life, and the more and more I think about it, the more I realize it almost consumes me.  Every time I hear a buzz, I immediately look towards my phone, for what I think is going to be only a second but ends up being at least thirty minutes. This happens not only when I hear a noise, but when I see a glow or am away from my phone for what I interpret as too long.  I never think of it when I have my phone, but when my phone is taken or is being unused, like during a class, I can see a drastic change in how productive I am and can be. It reminds me that I probably am not a procrastinator, but I am just someone who feeds into media. During nights that I have lots of homework or things that must be done, internally, I know that I should give up my phone, but the media and the way it is presented tells me that I need it to succeed.  If it was not for my critical thinking class, I may have never came to this realization and just felt that I truly needed it as I have never really analyzed the way in which the media presents itself. This awareness allows me to now be able to put my phone away when needed and remind myself that it will all be there when come back after a few hours. Previous to this class, I never really thought of advertisements as media, which now seems super silly, but I just thought of media as the social media that I used, shows and movies.  After analyzing and really learning about the media out there, I am now more aware of why I may feel like I “need” something, when in fact it is probably because the advertisement I saw for it told me that I would fit in or some silly thing like that. I have found that a lot of media and what it portrays is super obvious once it is brought to your attention, but it can be super deceiving. Keeping a journal of the media I see on a day to day basis reminded me of the ‘why’ in which advertisers put into things. Although a lot of my media blogs were on similar things, I think it really helped in that it showed I was making changes and slowly moving to being more aware.  These slow changes that are being made throughout my daily life enables me to be the best consumer I can be. I can make decisions about what I want, not based off of the way in which something is portrayed, but in what its true effect and impact it will have on my life. For example, a lot of commercials for Disney plus have been popping up, portraying that if I were to get it, I would almost become a child again as I can see all the things that I used to watch once again, not that I am not a child anymore, but you know what I mean, and if you do not know what I mean, I have just grown up more as everyone does as time moves on. Overall, the media does not seem like something that anyone would necessarily agree with due to all of the problems that it has, but it is kind of crazy that not many people notice any of the flaws in which it contains and think of media almost as a savior, and I am not saying that I am except from this although I am now more aware and am getting better about noticing the unjust errors in which media contains.  This shows how important it is for one to take a class or learn about media and its truths so everyone can be more aware and hopefully fight against these injustices. Anyway, I probably will not post on here ever again but it was nice writing and talking about media! Peace.