I am on Twitter constantly: is that bad?

Troy’s Excessive Media Usage

Time	Day 1 - 7/7/18	Day 2 - 7/8/18
5am-7am	SLEEP	SLEEP
7am-9am	Checked Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook (in that order; will be referred to from now on as the Big 3) as I do each and every morning when I wake up, looked for texts that arrived in the middle of the night and attempted to respond accordingly	SLEEP
10am-12pm	Checked Twitter once to keep up with the England-Sweden match	Checked the Big 3, quickly checked email and University websites to prepare for the massive amount of homework due in the following days
12pm-2pm	Checked both email accounts briefly Texted once	Drove to Napa Auto & Menards, listened to 95.3 on the drive
2pm-4pm	Watched the tail end of the Croatia-Russia game, drove to work Turned on the Summer Hits of the 90’s & 00’s at work via Spotify	Started going through the local files in my music library, checked the Big 3 about fifty times apiece while staring at my open email, further delaying the inevitable
4pm-6pm	Listened to tunes, checked Twitter a few times, texted twice, checked Instagram	Still finding new ways to avoid homework, I washed & waxed my car while listening to the radio in order to make an Instagram post about procrastination
6pm-8pm	Checked Twitter, worked, kept jamming Texted the old man about a car issue	Successfully made the aforementioned Instagram post, which has now also been shared on my Facebook. Returning to homework on Google Docs. Have since ordered pizza. Checked all social media again. Zoning in now. Used YouTube & Blogspot to share comments on colleague’s screencasts
8pm-10pm	Twitter, again Took a few Snapchat videos and pictures at a local car meet	Still listening to music on Spotify and checking Twitter after every two sentences I write, I have finally started to use Adobe Spark
10pm-12am	Drove home from work, checked the Big 3 (social media, not the basketball league started by Ice Cube), went to Pizza Luce for some eats and drinks, watched some NBA Summer League while radio played, including but not limited to Dilemma by Nelly	Upon completion of the Adobe Spark project, I look towards finishing this one out. I have checked each of my Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram no less than 5 times apiece within the last couple of hours, while listening to music through Spotify the whole time. Visited the Bandcamp website once to listen to my old band Ridgewood and reminisce on the past
12am-5am	Walked home, regrettably watched more of Van Helsing than I needed to, checked the Big 3, went to sleep	SLEEP (presumably)

Key themes and trends:

• Twitter is far and away the most frequently checked (as well as the most fascinating)
• I check my social media a LOT - I have notifications turned off for almost everything, though
• I did not directly track times of usage of media - more on that in the summary

REFLECTION:

     I've done an activity like this before for a class I took as a prerequisite to my former education program, where I tracked my media usage and had to reflect on it. That was two years ago and, doing it this time, not a great deal has changed for me. If anything my media usage has gotten more extensive, despite my constant efforts to curb it. I used to be under that generic small-town frame of mind that thinks "Social media is bad! It's ruining our kids and our country and burning our villages! Arg!" However, I've come around to thinking that social media is a vital part of our current cultural climate, news cycle, and even political awareness. Plus, no feeling comes close to keeping up with a sports game on Twitter.
     When I first read the Pew findings I was not entirely surprised - once again, rural America tried to set me up to think that social media is like a parasite that just sucks all the life out of you, just like marijuana in the 90s. Yes, teens go online "almost constantly." Yes, teens use more than one social networking site. Honestly, the only thing that surprised me about this survey was how far behind Twitter was compared to Facebook and Instagram. In my social circle (and of course I am not a teenager anymore) Facebook is hardly used - I only use it to promote my bands, or as another outlet to share an Instagram post. Facebook seems to have become the absolute bowels of the internet; it is an outlet for all ages to spew their views without punishment for the potentially harmful things they may spew. One may argue that Twitter is the same, in that sense, though Twitter's ownership takes more action to combat this oppressive activity and seems to be on the up and up moving forward.
     As for my media usage, I was not entirely surprised by my activity either. I also felt that, in a sense, it was irresponsible of me to assign certain "minutes used" brackets to each of my media usages. I am an extremely plugged in person; I do not honestly believe there is any specific time of the day that I am not directly or indirectly consuming some form of media. This also is not only so much in the "interacting with associates" sense, but for example I am always refreshing my Twitter feed for the latest world news and sports updates. That is one of the beauties of Twitter - it is honestly what you make it. Control who you follow, and your experience will be what you want it to be. I like to be updated more often than not, so in that sense Twitter is perfect for me.
     I believe that future students will use media about as often as me; this is being normalized these days, though I do not see anything wrong with that. The world is constantly moving forward in a technological sense, and it seems to be apropos that we would all stay plugged in to our respective networks. It can absolutely be distracting; I mean, any kid (or adult for that matter) may prefer to dink around on their phones as opposed to listening to a three hour lecture. However, since we have that option TO be distracted as easily as pulling something out of our pockets, that is why it is so crucial that moving forward we integrate technology into the classroom. Students can still be using technology in a manner that will not be distracting them from any imminent lesson. This is surely the future; we must accommodate accordingly.
     I do believe it would be important for students to do a study like this at least once during their late high-school/undergrad career. No matter how "plugged in" you are or are not, it is important to know where you stand on the imaginary scale. Regardless of which way you cut it, we are all "plugged in" in one way, shape, or form nearly 100% of the time. However, it is important to manage that media that is consumed in an academic setting, and during that time it may as well be engineered by the professor.