My name is Chloe Hill, I am a Journalism student at UQ, an
elite rower and my life is one never-ending day-by-day cycle of media and
production usage. Before this assignment, I would describe my daily routine
fairly simply as: wake, train, eat, work, eat, train, eat, sleep, (with ‘work’
swapped for ‘uni’ a couple of days per week). However, since recording my media
and production usage for a period of 10 days, the perspective I have of my
daily life has been greatly shifted.
Media is all around us, we can’t escape it. With the portability
of internet via phones, laptops and other devices, we can now connect with
media while on the move, straight from our bag or back pocket.
As shown in the graph above, my most extensively used
sources of media are my phone, radio and internet. When recording my phone
usage, I accounted for time spent both texting and using the Facebook and Gmail
applications. However, when recording internet usage, I separated general
surfing from Facebook and Gmail, hence the less frequent figures in the two end
columns.
There are a number of trends in my results that can be explained
by the schedule I follow week by week:
- · The days I train both in the morning and evening, radio usage is high due to more time spent travelling.
- · On both Thursdays (15th and 22nd March), phone usage was low as I don’t train Thursday afternoons and spend the afternoon at home, with lesser a need to contact people.
- · I only listen to my iPod while at the gym, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
When re-reading over the blogs I posted, outlining my
routine and media usage day-by-day, I have come to associate high phone and
radio usage, with days when I am home less often or not at all. Being away from
my computer and internet, creates a need for me to connect to media via other
means, hence my phone is pulled out and used, til the battery runs absolutely
dry.
On average, per day, my media and production usage resulted
in:
- · Phone- 116 minutes
- · Radio- 117 minutes
- · Internet- 72.5 minutes
- · iPod- 59 minutes
- · TV- 18 minutes
- · Newspaper- 2 minutes
- · Facebook- 21 minutes
- · Gmail- 4.5 minutes
So what does this 10 day recording period say about my
relationship with Journalism and Communication?
I am a communications addict. Over the 10 days I spent close
to 20 hours using my phone, which is close enough to one whole day of texting,
Facebook-ing and emailing. If the essence of Journalism is telling stories,
then my life is one constant journalistic ride of telling and retelling stories
and ideas to family and friends, via the social media and communication.
How do my usage results compare with that of my peers?
None of my results are overly different or varied from my
peers, as most of my results fall into the majority. I am not an iPhone user; I
fall into the 13.4% with an “other” brand of smartphone, however, like 95.4% of
my peers, I have and use the Facebook application on my phone. My internet
usage falls just 4 minutes per day short of the 2-3 hours per day majority,
however I am sure that if my schedule allowed for it, I would easily be within
that category. I am in the minority in terms of listening to the radio. While a
53.9% majority listen to less than an hour of radio per day, I am within the
10.9% of the cohort who listen 1-2 hours per day. This higher usage amount is
once again due to my busy training schedule, and the hours I spend in the car
travelling each day.
Media and production rules our society. It is
ever-expanding, allowing users more and more opportunities to connect with the
rest of the world. It seems we have no choice but to embrace the always
changing media and communication opportunities, and I personally, am excited
for what is next to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment