Field Notes: My Findings
It is ridiculous how attached I am to technology. I might actually have an addiction. Taking field notes for a week to track my media use and then reading through them afterwards has just made me want to take a hiatus from technology and the whole virtual world, because I truly believe I have become trapped in this whole other dimension.
Wake and Bake (...in Media)
Every morning I wake up and the first thing I do is check my phone for any notifications, missed texts or calls, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Why?
When I step back and think about it, I feel like its a complete waste of time. That's five extra minutes I could use getting ready in the morning, instead of running on a time crunch to get to class. It has become a habit that could be very difficult to break.
The same goes for when I'm getting ready to go to sleep at night. Some nights I read a bit from a book (yes, an actual paper book) before I go to sleep, but sometimes deep reading seems too difficult to do at the moment and I end up scrolling idly through my Twitter feed. Why don't I just go right to sleep if I am tired? I don't get enough sleep each night as it is.
Intimate Dinner Dates with My Laptop
Another really common thing I do is eat meals in front of my computer. When my roommate isn't home, I usually will eat in my room while watching a show on Netflix, videos on YouTube, or just surfing the Net. I can't imagine just sitting at the dining table without my phone or computer to distract me. We even have a lovely view out the window next to the dining table, I could just relax, take a break, enjoy my meal, and stare out the window. Why don't I do that? I probably should. It is the perfect way to take a break and relax. My life does revolve around technology, and I truly believe it would be difficult to completely go on a hiatus from it all; although it does sound quite appealing after seeing how much time I spend on new media and how reliant I am on it.
Whenever I log on to my computer, my default instinct is to start Firefox (if it isn't up already), open my Loyola email and Facebook. If I have no new emails, I close out of that tab. Then I look at Facebook. If I have any notifications I check them all out; usually it's my friends just poking me... Then I start scrolling aimlessly though my news feed. I usually click on links that seem interesting and end up quickly skimming to see if their worth my time reading. If they are, I will take my time reading them, otherwise I click right out of them and continue down my feed. Lately, I haven't been spending much time looking at my Facebook, unless I'm trying to find someone on the site. I think they call that "stalking," but I don't like using that word... If I don't have any notifications, I will do the same thing of just briefly scrolling through my news feed.
Once I click out of Facebook, I usually check my Gmail next and open newsmap.jp to check out any of the big news stories in the world.
It should be noted that I always have about four or more tabs open in one browser. It seems really excessive, but it makes me feel like I'm being very productive. But actually this whole ritual isn't very productive, it's just my default that I have to do, otherwise I feel anxious that I might have missed something.
Frustration in Slow Connection
I get so extremely frustrated when the Internet connection is performing slower than usual. This has happened numerous times since the beginning of the semester, especially with Loyola's WiFi. I have high expectations when it comes to the speed of the WiFi performance. Everything should and needs to be quick, fast, and easy. If the connection starts to lag behind even by a few seconds more then usual, I'll admit that I start to throw a fit. One comment from my field notes even made me laugh when I was reading back through them; the WiFi in my apartment was being extremely slow and so instead of just getting off my computer and doing some reading for class "I am currently spinning in my chair pretending I'm an airplane... Wow, I really have no life."
Click, Click, Click
While doing research for class projects and papers, I've noticed that in order to find exactly the information I want, searching entails a lot of clicking around, hyperlinks, different web search platforms, hundreds of open tabs and browsers, and chaos. My professor for international marketing assigned us to read the World Happiness Report, whenever I found anything interesting while reading it, I would open another tab and find other articles and information on the topic. For example, Denmark is found to be one of the happiest countries in the world, so I skimmed through the Wikipedia page for Denmark and I opened other hyperlinks throughout the text that seemed interesting. Basically, I was researching which country would be best to move to after graduating from Loyola. My conclusion after my entire search was: New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Amsterdam, Indonesia. I couldn't even tell you how exactly the process ensued of me making such a conclusion.
For another class I had to put together a Storify on an issue/event for my blog. Since my beat is the Polish-American community in Chicago, I decided to do a Storify biography on Alan Krashesky, a Polish-American news anchor and reporter for Chicago's WLS-TV/ABC 7. During my research, I was trying to find one specific piece of information which was not coming up on any web search, which completely and utterly frustrated me; because I am pretty darn good at researching and finding exactly the information I want or need. During the couple of hours it took me to research and write the post it felt like my web searches were becoming more and more narrower into what Google was thinking I needed, which was exactly what I didn't need. We have discussed this in class about how more and more websites are following our cookies and collecting data on each and every one of us. Google, Netflix, and Amazon all personalize our searches to what they believe we want to see, not what we need to see. I truly felt and experienced this while researching for my blog post and it shows how the more we use these search engines the more focused and narrowed our vision is into the World Wide Web. The Web should be this infinite, vast world, but the more I searched and spent on one topic, it actually caused me to have a more closed off experience.
The Nervous Tick
The biggest discovery I had with this method of tracking my media use was that it was a filler in time. Most of the time I spent on my phone or on my computer was just me being bored and checking Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, knowing there really wasn't anything new to see. While waiting for the elevator or the train or for class to start, I would have this habitual instinct to look at my phone; of course, with absolutely no idea what I needed to look at. But I caught myself just pulling it out either way; just to look at the screen for the time and for any possible notifications, because you never know if I could have missed something in the 30 seconds it took to put away my phone, lock my door, and walk to the elevator. It's almost like a nervous tick I have. The worst part is when there is a lag in a face-to-face conversation and I have the immediate instinct to check my phone.
WHY?
This honestly concerns me. I am too dependent on my gadgets to fill awkward spaces in my life. I need to learn to live through them in real time and not in this virtual world.
Wake and Bake (...in Media)
Every morning I wake up and the first thing I do is check my phone for any notifications, missed texts or calls, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Why?
When I step back and think about it, I feel like its a complete waste of time. That's five extra minutes I could use getting ready in the morning, instead of running on a time crunch to get to class. It has become a habit that could be very difficult to break.
The same goes for when I'm getting ready to go to sleep at night. Some nights I read a bit from a book (yes, an actual paper book) before I go to sleep, but sometimes deep reading seems too difficult to do at the moment and I end up scrolling idly through my Twitter feed. Why don't I just go right to sleep if I am tired? I don't get enough sleep each night as it is.
Intimate Dinner Dates with My Laptop
Another really common thing I do is eat meals in front of my computer. When my roommate isn't home, I usually will eat in my room while watching a show on Netflix, videos on YouTube, or just surfing the Net. I can't imagine just sitting at the dining table without my phone or computer to distract me. We even have a lovely view out the window next to the dining table, I could just relax, take a break, enjoy my meal, and stare out the window. Why don't I do that? I probably should. It is the perfect way to take a break and relax. My life does revolve around technology, and I truly believe it would be difficult to completely go on a hiatus from it all; although it does sound quite appealing after seeing how much time I spend on new media and how reliant I am on it.
Whenever I log on to my computer, my default instinct is to start Firefox (if it isn't up already), open my Loyola email and Facebook. If I have no new emails, I close out of that tab. Then I look at Facebook. If I have any notifications I check them all out; usually it's my friends just poking me... Then I start scrolling aimlessly though my news feed. I usually click on links that seem interesting and end up quickly skimming to see if their worth my time reading. If they are, I will take my time reading them, otherwise I click right out of them and continue down my feed. Lately, I haven't been spending much time looking at my Facebook, unless I'm trying to find someone on the site. I think they call that "stalking," but I don't like using that word... If I don't have any notifications, I will do the same thing of just briefly scrolling through my news feed.
Once I click out of Facebook, I usually check my Gmail next and open newsmap.jp to check out any of the big news stories in the world.
It should be noted that I always have about four or more tabs open in one browser. It seems really excessive, but it makes me feel like I'm being very productive. But actually this whole ritual isn't very productive, it's just my default that I have to do, otherwise I feel anxious that I might have missed something.
Frustration in Slow Connection
I get so extremely frustrated when the Internet connection is performing slower than usual. This has happened numerous times since the beginning of the semester, especially with Loyola's WiFi. I have high expectations when it comes to the speed of the WiFi performance. Everything should and needs to be quick, fast, and easy. If the connection starts to lag behind even by a few seconds more then usual, I'll admit that I start to throw a fit. One comment from my field notes even made me laugh when I was reading back through them; the WiFi in my apartment was being extremely slow and so instead of just getting off my computer and doing some reading for class "I am currently spinning in my chair pretending I'm an airplane... Wow, I really have no life."
Click, Click, Click
While doing research for class projects and papers, I've noticed that in order to find exactly the information I want, searching entails a lot of clicking around, hyperlinks, different web search platforms, hundreds of open tabs and browsers, and chaos. My professor for international marketing assigned us to read the World Happiness Report, whenever I found anything interesting while reading it, I would open another tab and find other articles and information on the topic. For example, Denmark is found to be one of the happiest countries in the world, so I skimmed through the Wikipedia page for Denmark and I opened other hyperlinks throughout the text that seemed interesting. Basically, I was researching which country would be best to move to after graduating from Loyola. My conclusion after my entire search was: New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Amsterdam, Indonesia. I couldn't even tell you how exactly the process ensued of me making such a conclusion.
For another class I had to put together a Storify on an issue/event for my blog. Since my beat is the Polish-American community in Chicago, I decided to do a Storify biography on Alan Krashesky, a Polish-American news anchor and reporter for Chicago's WLS-TV/ABC 7. During my research, I was trying to find one specific piece of information which was not coming up on any web search, which completely and utterly frustrated me; because I am pretty darn good at researching and finding exactly the information I want or need. During the couple of hours it took me to research and write the post it felt like my web searches were becoming more and more narrower into what Google was thinking I needed, which was exactly what I didn't need. We have discussed this in class about how more and more websites are following our cookies and collecting data on each and every one of us. Google, Netflix, and Amazon all personalize our searches to what they believe we want to see, not what we need to see. I truly felt and experienced this while researching for my blog post and it shows how the more we use these search engines the more focused and narrowed our vision is into the World Wide Web. The Web should be this infinite, vast world, but the more I searched and spent on one topic, it actually caused me to have a more closed off experience.
The Nervous Tick
The biggest discovery I had with this method of tracking my media use was that it was a filler in time. Most of the time I spent on my phone or on my computer was just me being bored and checking Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, knowing there really wasn't anything new to see. While waiting for the elevator or the train or for class to start, I would have this habitual instinct to look at my phone; of course, with absolutely no idea what I needed to look at. But I caught myself just pulling it out either way; just to look at the screen for the time and for any possible notifications, because you never know if I could have missed something in the 30 seconds it took to put away my phone, lock my door, and walk to the elevator. It's almost like a nervous tick I have. The worst part is when there is a lag in a face-to-face conversation and I have the immediate instinct to check my phone.
WHY?
This honestly concerns me. I am too dependent on my gadgets to fill awkward spaces in my life. I need to learn to live through them in real time and not in this virtual world.