Daily Media

It wasn’t until my junior year,1992, that my parents broke down and finally ordered cable.  For the younger generation this is hard to believe, but there was life before technology streamed though cable lines into television sets in America.  Looking back, I feel privileged to know how to turn a dial on a TV, lick an actual postage stamp to send mail, and how utilize a card catalogue in the library.  In a time when micro phish was king of information for reports, not Wikipedia, life seemed right.  If someone was to mention Apples iphone, I would have expected to see a phone in the shape of an apple, or pulled a “Forrest Gump” and asked what fruit companies are doing in the phone business.  Days have turned into years, and now my media consumption has pushed forward to the finger-tapping excitement of that very iphone.  I have always been a reader of newspapers and watched the news, regional and national, because that was what was on the TV(and getting a slipper thrown at the back of your head by grandma for reaching for the dial, wasn’t fun).  Taking a deep look and actually seeing what media I now consume in a day, I notice the drastic change in how I receive my news/information and the amount I download to that same slipper-bruised head.

            I decided that, for me, the ideal day to monitor myself was Monday.  It is the day after the opening day of football and when my conscious is filled with thoughts of stats and injury reports.  My morning started immediately with a quick 15 minute logon to Facebook to see if any of my friends made idiotic post for me to rag on, no such luck;  Then another 15 minutes on my John Jay e-mail to see if any classes were cancelled, again no such luck.  I did one hour of reading the Daily News--- it’s not the Times, but I need my fix---and one hour of reading short stories from my literature textbook on the subway for my journey to school.  I have three classes back to back, and I am a firm believer in turning of my phone for those classes, so knowledge from my professors was my media thirst quencher.  I did catch myself eyeballing two minutes worth of NY1 on the flat screen t.v. outside of class though.

 After school another hour on the train was consumed by Billy Joel and Jack Johnson, mainly to drown out my fellow New Yorkers across from me engaged in a conversation about whose neighborhood was tougher.  It’s when I got home for the day that the majority of my media was consumed.  Mondays are great for sports talk and from 5-6 pm I got it from ESPN’s “Around the Horn” and “Pardon the Interruption.”  I switched over for another 30 minutes of local news from channel 7, followed by Diane Sawyer with the national news.  Monday Night Football took another 3 hours and some change, which included rapid texting back and forth to friends about the dismal Jets offense.  While watching the game I switched back and forth to the Mets game, again with texts going to a friend in Pittsburg about the dismal offenses of both teams.  The total text in that three hour span was fifty one.  Before bed I mapped out my day with no media.  What would I do? How could I make it?  I had to think back to my youth with no cell phones and internet and I had a plan.  So one last login to my e-mail for 5 minutes, then 15 minutes on Tigerwoods.com---I have a man crush, sorry.  My last logon was to secure a tee time for Tuesday: five minutes that would help me escape my media frenzy

            Tuesday was a great day from the start. No classes, because of the Friday schedule, made ample time for some golf.  Escaping the media wasn’t as easy as I thought.  I had to drive my wife to the train station and when she turned on the radio I had to quickly turn it off.  When I told her it would be better to have it off so we can talk, she knew something was up.  “It’s for my class, that’s why I’m golfing today too.” She just gave me a half hearted laugh and shrugged it off.  As she got out of the car she reminded me to read another chapter of What to Expect When Your Expecting, and the grimace I received when I smiled and said, “Cant…the class” was somewhat unnerving. Two rounds of golf would now consume my day.  My phone was cut off, the sun was tickling the back of my neck on the first tee box, and I was not at the mercy of media.  At the turn, I went in to grab a Gatorade and Bagel and tuned out, as best I could, “ESPN Sportscenter” blaring in club house.  Eight hours were down, and it felt pretty good.  It was time to go home, and face the media demons.  What happened today?  I kept asking it in my head.  My apartment holds media temptation all over, magazines everywhere, textbooks---my TV even seemed to give me a look of disappointment when I didn’t turn it on.  My laptop crept closer and closer, and my ipad was glaring in disgust.  I had to get out of the house again.  I put on my sneakers and decided to go for a run.  It never dawned on me how crappy it is to run with no ipod.  It was 6pm and I was struggling.  My wife came home and we decided to go out to eat; the temptation was too great in the apartment.  The Italian restaurant stopped me in my tracks.  They had to play Sinatra and Dino Martin over their speakers.  It was over, and then my wife said that Reggie Bush forfeited his Heisman, and I was awe struck, I broke down and pulled the iphone out of my pocket.  So almost twelve hours, and the neurons were flowing and the dopamine was back, my media rush was present in the bloodstream and I was feeling good again.

            After reading the articles on the Pew study, I can place myself into the integrator category.  I consume most of my news from traditional sources and some from internet sources.  When I do turn to the internet it’s with WebPages of traditional news media, associated press, New York Times, etc.  I’m not a blogger, and have never really read a blog site.  I trust the news papers and big news channels for my news.  I have always read the daily papers, from the Houston Chronicle (Houston) to the North County Times (California), and when I get on a flight I always grab a USA Today.  I love newspapers but I also like the fact that with the apps on phones and ipads, I can tune into what I want, but it will never stop the old man in me from tuning into 1010 WINS when I’m in my car, or scooping up a Daily News to read Mike Lupica shoot from the lip.