Media Surveillance

Media, media, media...

I ponder how much I actually use media in my daily life. Am I really the consumed American teenager with nothing better to do than to snoop into others' lives, completely obsessed with how others live and interact and look and behave, forgetting my own place in the world? I wouldn't like to think so.

But I still wonder. I use the Internet several times a day, logging onto Facebook and updating my status, checking my mail, and maybe commenting on a few others' pages. I listen to music all the time, the same CDs and songs and artists continually on repeat over and over again on my iPod, which I happened to shatter earlier today due to lack of sleep and food and concrete stairs. What does it mean that I wasn't terribly upset about my iPod's unfortunate demise? What does it mean that I flip quickly through news channels, regardless of which ones they are, to get to stupid reality TV shows about groups of idiotic people who are desperate for their five minutes of fame? What does it mean that I'd rather listen to CDs or Christian music than general radio shows and talk shows and this shows and that shows? What does that show?

Perhaps that I'm not as enveloped and entranced by media as my peers. Or perhaps that I am just as consumed as they are. Media itself warns its viewers/listeners/fanatics that it can be wrong. Obviously it does. There are talk shows about how talk shows are ridiculous. And documentaries about how news stories are more sensational than factual. Media trumps media. Heck, I'd say that even this class might be some sort of conspiracy to expose us to media, in return for our loyal devotion to it.

Just something to think about.