Was, Am, Will

So the last time I've written in this was last semster, right around the last big show with Culture Shock. I guess I haven't had much motivation or reason to write in here because I took a Media Studies class in spring. Much of what I learned was how media, especially convergent media (those of which implement and utilize multiple channels of communication), like the Internet, have convinced me to keep my life a bit more private and personal.

Another reason is that media gives us a false sense of 'connection'. In other words, there isn't a personal connection where real-time and real-world feedback is possible. From what I've learned and experienced myself is that people feel the need to be so connected to this virtual world that when it comes to being a 'primitive' human being, the greatest sensations of lonliness can occur... "I feel naked without my phone".

The problem that I see is this virtual interconnective dependence, in fact, segregates people. It's come to the point of not "who I keep In touch with", but rather, "who keeps in touch with me?", "who leaves me comments and follows my updates & tweets?". The reason why anyone posts something online is for attention, straight up. And I understand that it's completely natural to seek attention because no one desires to be lonely. But with mass media, channels in which your audience is many and perhaps unknown, with feedback being minimal to nothing and impersonal, you fail to gain the same attention of a personal conversation versus online, even if one were to have 1,000 followers on Twitter.

This leads me to my next point: minimalist style conversations. Because we are adapting to 'real-time', 'up-to-the-second' updates, we're too busy focusing on "What's happening NOW?". The problem with this is that we are directly influenced to live and have a present-time mentality. Unlike animals who only live in the present tense, humans have notions of past and future as well. But we aren't animals and are clearly capable of higher thinking. So to live in a more reasonable way, I’m not saying to abandon the resources we have, but use them more efficiently and consciously, especially of the consequences they carry, visible or not. We have to equally distribute our lifestyle in all three categories. Examine the past before you fall into it's footsteps, enjoy the present to later recall on it, and prepare for the future to see the pathway you set for yourself or others to follow.

I wish I had more backing to my statements, but ironically I'm writing this in class and I don't have any resources or time to do so. Perhaps I'll create a series of my media-consumer rebellionto further elaborate my ideas. Thanks for reading anyways.