Media Usage Diary

Media Usage Diary

Prior to beginning my media usage diary I was intrigued if not a little nervous at what this aspect of my life would look like summed up in numbers and sealed in a little table. It would undoubtably be a very self-reflective experience, one which i could compare with my peers using a survey on media usage, filled out by the students of JOUR1111. I was already aware of the big role that technology and the media plays in my life. I literally surround myself with my portable possessions, with my laptop, phone and iPod all having their own spots on my bed. Over the 10 days in which I recorded my media usage I was pleasantly surprised yet very predictable all at the same time!

Figure 1.

It was evident to me straight away that I spend an un-godly amount of my time in front of some sort of screen, or two, or three. It is the stamp of GenY, the ability to use many different types of technology at any one time. Like me, 24.8% of people spend about 3-4hours on the internet each day. Although that table above makes it seem like much more than that, I was doing most things all at the same time!

Figure 2.

Figure two is a pie chart which further displays where I spent most of the 10 days. The internet is a clear favourite followed closely by my phone. I spend the least amount of time reading actual text, including newspapers and magazines. This was a hard concept to grasp as reading is one of my favourite past times but when I began to think about it, it made sense. My favourite magazines come out every month, so as soon as I devour it there is usually a substantial wait until the next one comes out. Living only with my older brother means that the newspaper is not purchased or delivered, it seems that this is not unusual as only 3.6% of students said that the traditional newspaper was their most common source of news. I am exposed to it mainly while on the train or visiting my parents. In compliance with the rest of the cohort, most days I spend about 1-2hours watching television. As stated previously, I live with my older brother which means I often don't get to decide what to watch and subsequently means I usually only watch  the ABC news and maybe stick around for whatever he's watching next. I would say that the Olympics being on while my media usage diary was being conducted probably had an influence on the time I spent watching TV. I think that most days this time would be less. The music I listen to takes up a lot more time than I ever realised but like me 83.6% listen to music on their computers and 84.8% listen on their iPods. As the survey showed 45.5% of people said they listened to the radio for less then one hour a day and this was true for me also.

Figure 3.

Figure 3 shows how I spend my time while on the internet. In contrast to my Jour1111 peers I spend more time browsing the internet and on Skype than on Facebook. Twitter is something I am new to and consequently use a very small amount of. You could probably say the same about most of the cohort as 30.9% say they use Twitter but only 1.2% say they spend most of their time on it. Social networking is a huge part of my media usage and the same can be said for the rest of my peers. It shows that we are very much apart of Web 2.0- the new media. We love online interaction and the fact that we get to be prod-users- uploading photos and text and receiving gratification (usually in the form of 'likes') that people care about our lives and what we had for lunch.

Figure 4.

Figure four is a representation of how I use media in the form of old and new media. It is evident that new media, such as social networking, is used a lot more. However, I was expecting a much higher percentage of new media. Old media such as newspapers, television, magazine and radio, still defiantly have a place in my media usage. These traditional forms of media are still going strong!

Figure 5.

Figure 5, though it looks very confusing, is perhaps the most interesting. It is immediately evident that my high internet usage significantly drops over days 5,6 and 7. This was because I visited my parents, about an hour and a half south of Brisbane, on the family farm. The internet there is usually slow and can be very recalcitrant so generally I don't bother using it. As my internet usage saw a severe drop my television watching and phone usage increased, perhaps in compensation. This shows that although I have become accustom to super fast internet, availability and quality can still be an obstacle for media usage in Australia. Towards the end of the 10 days, my phone usage drops to zero as it broke on 7th night. At first I (naturally) freaked out but decided to hold off buying a new one until the end of the week. I have been pleasantly surprised by the ease of this task which I thought was going to be dreadful. My Facebook usage increased because of it as I still had to be contactable and contact others.

This media usage diary was a great self-reflection. The survey also helped put everything into perspective and allowed me to compare my media usage to that of my peers. One thing I will take away from this however is that I probably don't expose myself to enough quality news as I should. Aproximently 11 hours of my time was spent reading and viewing news which is less than a sixth of the time I spend on the internet and less then half the time I spend listening to music. Although I endeavour to watch ABC news every night I believe, as a student of Jour1111 this semester, I should be taking in a wide selection of journalism on a regular basis. It is something I will defiantly keep in mind and I will aim to; get on twitter more often, regularly check the news online and even buy a newspaper now and then!