Socialization Reflection

My main problem that I possess when it comes to my phone dependency is how to fill my free time with efficient activities like reading, homework, or other things. When I went through school without using social media, I was much more attentive in class and I did not really miss the connection I had with my phone. I also discovered that I do not deal with the “fear of missing out” because in actuality I did not miss out on a single thing. Identifying this fact enabled me to understand that thinking I need my phone because something important could potentially arise is a complete lie that I feed to myself to give a “valid” excuse that I need to be connected to my phone at all times of the day. This challenge revealed to me how detrimental social media could become if I keep using it extensively. I have read several articles about how media are physically altering our brain in a bad way and leading to a lack of essential skills in people, mainly in the millennial generation. This made me question if new media has contributed to the rise of social anxiety in individuals or aided the downfall of literacy in America today. This project has truly opened my eyes with my personal media use and the potential risks that can spawn from abusing

24% of teenagers say that they go online “almost constantly” everyday according to a study from the Pew Research Center. In our society today, adults, teens, and children are always using some form of technology. Technology can be used for important purposes such as school or work. Other times technology only serves as a distraction from what really matters in life. We get very attached to technology and that can become a problem. In Fahrenheit 451, the main character Montag is a firemen who is trained to destroy books because the society’s government thinks that books are dangerous because they cause conflict. In place of books, many people use parlor wall TVs as their entertainment. The screens on the parlor walls serve as an unhealthy distraction.

For this assignment, I began logging my media usage on September 3th thru September 5th. Over the course of those two days, I used my laptop computer (online and off online), my android mobile device, television, and social media outlets. The most challenging aspect of this assignment was actually documenting the “spare of the moment” social media usage that occurred when I was walking to class or waiting on a meeting. However, it was truly an eye opening assignment that displayed how the media is not only a part of my everyday life, it consumes my life.

Add to this study a statistic from the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics “75% of teenagers now own cell phones, 25% use them for social media, 54% use them for texting, and 24% of them use them for instant messaging” (Gwenn Schurgin O'Keeffe). We have an entire generation that is developing socially and emotionally while “plugged-in”. This negative effect is not only caused by just internet use and cell phones, our old friend the television is causing us harm as well. With the invent of newer ways to deliver television shows, the ability to better record television shows, and watch “on demand” shows it shouldn’t be shocking to know that according to Neilson Ratings the average American household watches “5 hours and 11 minutes of television a day” (Who Watches What (and How Much)? U.S. TV Trends by Ethnicity). Psychologists have proven that too much television has been shown to “hamper development of the pre-frontal cortex -- the area of the brain responsible for planning, organizing and sequencing behavior for self-control, moral judgment and attention” (Abell) there should be no doubt that this fact and the fact that nearly “1 in 10 children in America have been

Firstly, I noticed how much media speeds up our everyday lives. Essentially everyone is multitasking; it is a way of life in our society. I noticed multitasking at its finest when I went to the library later that day. People are researching online, writing papers, Facebook stalking, instant messaging and listening to their iPods all instantaneously. The instant access to everything has formed our culture. I find myself running on autopilot when it comes to using media. It took the full 24 hour fast for me to realize how dependent I really am on media to make it though the day. The stress I was feeling without the security of my phone or ability to communicate whenever I wanted to left me feeling helpless. Media not only speeds up daily activities, but it has given

These theories will be useful in determining my underlying motivations behind my choice of media and content and how my experiences help shape the meaning I provide to the former. Although I have a very active lifestyle, media does consume the largest portion of my time. For the sake of this analysis, the table above simply refers to the television shows and movies I watched throughout a week, however it is important to note that in addition, all time spent of the phone, computer, reading and listening to radio also comprise of media consumption.

The United States, at least in 2017 for millennials and frankly even middle aged adults, revolves around technology and media. Technology has reinvented the way we connect with the world. It's changed how we learn, communicate, and watch our favorite shows. As a high school student I know first hand how much technology has impacted not only education, but even a young adult's entire life, as i'm apart of a graduating that class that started off with little technology in grade school, to maturing with technology to the point where I have a computer that fits in my pocket and has access to everything on the internet as I graduate in June 2017 . With that being said, media consumes American students. According to IHS Markit, an analytical and research company who harnesses “the deepest sources of information, analytics and expertise to forge solutions for industries and markets that drive economies worldwide” found that the United States watches the most Television, with the average American watching nearly six hours of Television a day (IHS Markit, 2015). This is the most time spent watching Television out of every country in the world. This is so high because media and pop culture is so apparent in the United States, it consumes our day. This causes a real impact on the average American's daily life, as there is only so much time in a

Media multitasking is associated with symptoms of depression and social anxiety according to Mark W. Becker, Reem Alzahabi, and Christopher J. Hopwood’s study. These people conducted an experiment containing 318 participants. And the 318 people completed self-inventory tests to measure their media use, personality, depression, and social anxiety. The study suggests that the increased use of media multitasking show a risk to develop problems related to the individual’s mood and anxiety levels. With that being said this problem is raising concerns that media is replacing face to face interactions. “While overall media use among America’s youth increased by 20 percent over the past decade, the amount of time spent multitasking with media (simultaneously interacting with more than one form of media) increased by over 119 percent over the same period”( Becker, M. W., Alzahabi, R., & Hopwood, C. J. (2013)). Media multitasking has now been associated with attention control, meaning how to filter out any useless information and how to ignore distractions. Also in this study they looked at not only mood changes and anxiety disorders they also looked at traits of neuroticism and extraversion. All of these

In today’s society, everyday technology separates people through underdeveloped social skills, addiction, isolation, and distractions. One major way media separates people happens when a fun, entertaining game becomes too addictive. Which in result, creates a difficult cycle to break from. Many people have addictions to their phones causing them to isolate themselves from others, giving them less time with friends and family or even avoiding human contact and conversations all together. One source has claimed this statement, “Daniel Goleman, author of several books on the subject, says that the expanding hours spent alone with gadgets and digital tools could lower EI due to shrinkages in the time young people

This semester has been filled with informative information when speaking about our own social skill, but also other people’s social psychology as well, thus is why it will be very useful in future. Throughout the semester we studied everything from the introduction of social psychology, social influences, aggression in psychology, and interpersonal attraction and close relationships. A lot of the knowledge that I gained was not only from the “Social Psychology” textbook, but also in the videos and the reactions that we needed to come up with on a weekly basis. I like the idea of being able to watch the video to see if the experiment was successful or unsuccessful and commenting on it by giving my opinion if I agreed or not. For me,

“Our views and behavior depend to some degree on our social location in society—our gender, race, social class, religion, and so forth.”(Barkan, 2013). As I have grown up and my perspective of the world has broadened I have realized how narrow my views were. I grew up in Germany, Italy, and Hungary before moving to the USA, but because I was so sheltered I really didn’t know what was really happening in society. As I grew older I have come to realize the socialization process did help me develop my values, beliefs, morals, my religious outlook, my political affiliations and what not.

Over the past week I have been keeping track of my media use. I discovered I lead a pretty repetitive technological lifestyle. Weekday mornings I start my media consumption via my alarm clock on my cell phone. Why not use the regular alarm clock? Because with a cell phone I do not have to get up and out of bed in the morning- the snooze button is even closer to my barely awake fingertips. After hitting the snooze button at least once I make a point to check out Facebook because we all know everyone is constantly updating at 5:45 every morning.

As asked by the English alternative rock band Muse in their famous song “Screenager,” “Who’s so phoney and always surrounded?” This song perfectly depicts the effects of technology on America. People are engulfed by different types of technology everywhere they go and even carry around technology such as phones, laptops, and iPods. These items may seem like a blessing, but they are potentially dividing America. Every day, eight to eighteen-year-olds watch four and a half hours of TV, listen to two and a half hours of music, use the computer for an hour and a half, and spend two and a half hours on their cell phones, two hours for texting and one half hour for talking. This adds up to eleven hours dedicated on the media per day (Crawford).

Almost every aspect of our American culture, from bacon and eggs at breakfast to our engagement rituals to the holidays we celebrate, has been sewn into the fabric of our lives by the media. Consumption of media has become a means unto itself, an ouroboros-like pattern from which we can find no respite or escape. We may wish to totally extract ourselves from exposure to media directly but it is impossible to avoid how it has soaked into our culture and even our daily habits and rituals. Social norms are now rapidly adapting to the appropriate use of our interface of infinite knowledge that may once and still be called a cell phone. Even if we divorce ourselves from our phones we’re still jumping

Social psychology, the study of how we think about, influence, and relate to another, can be used to explain many situations and phenomena that happen in the world. For instance, it can be used to explain why and how people react the way they do when they perform poorly in an act that they’re usually good at, also known as self-serving bias. It is blaming external factors when bad things happen, but contributing internal factors to the reason why good things happen.