Now, by the looks of my excel spreadsheet, it may seem like I have no friends. The “With whom?”column is predominantly filled with “Alone;” however, I think this is telling of how I consume my media. I consume my media when I’m alone, either in my dorm, working out, or waiting for someone, which is a positive and negative consumption habit. It’s positive because it means that when I am with people, I’m completely present and not on my phone. However, it’s negative because it means that individually I cannot be content with my own thoughts. So when I’m using my smartphone, are my needs being fulfilled?

According to my log, which outlines my media consumption by the minute, I woke up in the morning and spent a total of 30 minutes on Instagram. Now, if this morning occurred a month ago when I used Snapchat, I could easily be on my phone for much longer. I deleted Snapchat because it wasn’t fulfilling my needs of diversity. Instagram allows me to look at stories and posts by friends, celebrities, and strangers. Furthermore, I can check stories, my feed, and the “explore” page. It’s scary, but also fascinating that Instagram has curated my explore page to match my interests: food related photos and videos, as well as choreographed dance performances. After checking my Instagram, I switch to my work’s account that I run. After viewing the stories, posts, and explore page, I finally completed my consumption for the morning. This excel spreadsheet, which highlights my consumption habits, has opened my eyes to the unproductive time I’ve spent on content that is useless for my daily functions. So why do I continue to use it?

Clearly, by the look of my excel spreadsheet and the platform this blog post is on, I cannot completely abandon technology. However, my consistent check of Instagram throughout the day doesn’t fulfill my needs. If anything, it makes my needs more meaningless because I am beginning to believe that social media begins each day and “wakes me up,” which is an unhealthy habit. However, a healthy habit that does fulfill my need of staying informed, is this website that I check daily for the ten top news stories of the day. This website fulfills my needs of staying informed on current events. However, staying informed is not fulfilled through my usage of Instagram, Spotify, or text messaging. Compared to Instagram, which I use when I am not doing anything, I listen to playlists on spotify while I do my homework or workout. As shown in my excel sheet, I listen to music while I do these activities, and occasionally I’ll check my phone when I get a text or call. I usually respond in words or “like” the text; however, I was feeling extra spunky this day and I sent a gif to my mom.

Upon deeper reflection, I consume most of my media (Instagram) before I start the day and occasionally throughout the day when I am alone. However, the only other times I consume media or use technology is to listen to music or complete my homework. Instagram definitely isn’t fulfilling my politically aware needs, but it is fulfilling my bored needs. Maybe this would change if I intentionally followed politically driven accounts; however, if social media is my escape to just mindlessly scroll and watch cute cat videos, do I really want dense, politically motivated content cluttering my feed?

Below is my media consumption log, which tracked the device, content source, action, location, amongst other factors. The empty boxes show the times I didn’t use technology or media, in which I was either talking with friends, eating, or sleeping.