According to my Screen Time app, I spent 7 hours and 43 minutes on my phone this Sunday (3.29.20). To be fair, it’s a lot less on days when I have online class, but this is still a significant jump from the 2 hours I usually spend on my phone during the weekend or weekday. The social media platforms I use the most are Youtube, which I spent 5 hours on, and Instagram, which I spent 1 hour on.
As far as news, I’ve been trying to read less of it. It’s almost exclusively about the virus and it honestly hasn’t been good for me to consume so much information about it everyday. However, when I do read the news, it’s through the news app. I read articles and get email newsletters. I don’t use the radio for news and rarely scroll through Instagram, but lately, I’ve been on the app more and look at NYTimes, Guardian, etc. I never watched TV for the news, but my family leaves it on literally all day, so some of that seeps into my head as well.
One piece of media that resonated with me was a tweet I found by artist Jennifer Baer about travel posters she had designed to encourage people to social distance and stay at home. This resonated with me because I’ve also been trying to stay creative and use art as a way to process what’s going on and because this was something happy and fun to look at and gave some relief.
One piece of news that resonated with me was a CNN video about fashion designer Christian Siriano and his sewing staff making masks and other protective equipment during this shortage. This piece resonated with me because again, it was a little bit of good in amongst a bunch of sad, angering news.
I definitely feel like my media consumption is under control–I’m making a very conscious effort to not check my news app, and I made sure to only leave notifications on for a couple publications right now. However, I’m on my phone way, way too much. It’s been harder than I thought not being around any of my friends and being so limited on how often I can go outside. Therefore, I’m trying to stay connected with everyone virtually and FaceTime and call a couple people a day. My phone and laptop are also my main sources of entertainment. When I’m not reading or doing schoolwork (which has been hard to focus on anyway), I’m watching Youtube or Netflix or scrolling through Instagram.
My lack of media consumption hasn’t had as much of an effect on my mental health as I wanted it to–it’s honestly really difficult not to hear about the latest COVID-19 news. If it’s not from my phone or laptop/my own doing, I hear about it from my family or a friend. However, it does feel good to have control over it, and I think that is helping me stay a lot more calm during a time where I have very little control over anything. I am aware of the impact that my new media consumption habits are having on my views, but not a lot of them have changed–I’ve always felt like this is a nightmare scenario in any case, but especially with this current administration, and unfortunately, I believe this more and more everyday. My idea of community hasn’t changed. I never thought that being away from people you care about changes your relationships with them–you just find new ways to stay close and communicate, which I’ve been doing.
The Web's Not Dead 