Tracking Your Screen Time

After the iOS 12 update for iPhones, finding out how much time you spent on any application is a breeze. Before I talked myself into believing that I hardly spent time on social media, but my phone has shown me that simply isn’t the case. We consume media every day whether or not we make the conscious decision to. For the purposes of this blog, I’ll focus primarily on conscious media consumption.

For the month of January, most of my time was spent on my favorite app: Twitter. Twitter is the place for sharing memes, discussing last night’s episode of The Walking Dead, and canceling artists for pouring milk before their cereal. I love this application because of its power to connect people from all areas around the world. By just searching for a keyword, you can find people with dissenting or concurring opinions as you. I was introduced to the app back in 2014 by a colleague of mine. It’s become the first source of my news and keeps me up-to-date with what’s going on globally. No, I do not get all of my news via Twitter.

The next application I spent most of my January on was Instagram. I don’t even remember downloading the app. Opening up Instagram is like opening a bag of potato chips; you can never just have one. I find myself endlessly scrolling photo after photo taking in every meticulously edited selfie. As someone who enjoys photographing the sights around me, it’s nice to see beauty captured by other people. It’s an app that needs a time limit because it’s difficult to discern the app from real life. Most people tend to only post their picture-perfect moment and leave out the ones that make them human.

My third most consumed media this month is YouTube. Who can forget classics like “Charlie Bit My Finger” and “Gangnam Style”? The former was the reason I found YouTube in the first place. I love that anyone can start up their own channel and create content. Seeing YouTubers grow their channels and be able to make a living off of it is truly remarkable. The reason this form of media is one of my most heavily consumed is due to suggested videos. One moment you’re watching a cat video next you’re watching soccer balls crushed by hydraulic presses. You never know what video will be suggested next and how far you’ll dive into the site. Once you’re viewing people in animal costumes smearing death on walls, you know you’ve gone too far.

After much analysis, I’ve come to the realization that a majority of my time is spent consuming media. Whether I’m on my phone, tablet, or computer; it all adds up. Maybe my time spent will decrease next month. Very unlikely, but maybe. Honestly, I don’t even think I’m worried about my media consumption because this is a media-fueled world that we live in. If I’m not consuming media, what else would I do? Go outside and exist? No way. All I’m concerned about is completing all tasks at hand while enjoying the media around me.