Samantha Milani
For my blog post this week, I spent one hour of my time in a mediated environment while being on social media and technology. I spent this hour in my room while music playing on my television, having a YouTube video playing on my computer and I worked on my schedule, which was on my iPad. I did this on a Monday, August 29th, 2022 at 12pm. This experience made me really think about how overstimulating technology can make me feel. It can be fun to explore social media but I realized there are so many photos, videos, opinions, facts being thrown at me all at once. This made me think about what these platforms can do to humans and how it can change our feelings so quickly just from an image! I tend to spend hours on my phone each day but doing so for a blog post, changed my perspective on how we should be using our time with social media and technology. This experience was eye opening to me and showed me I spend way too much time on technology and I mostly do this for no good reason other than to get away from the real world.
I spent another hour of my time in a natural setting on George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus that is isolated from other parts of campus. This area had very few students, only 2 and was very quiet compared to other parts on campus. I used no social media and technology at this time and spent this hour fully present in nature. I did this on a Tuesday, August 30th, 2022 at 10:30am. The weather was beautiful, the sun was shining but the wind cooled everything off, it felt as though Fall was just around the corner. This experience was very calming to me and I was able to observe many things about my surroundings.
This outdoor area had 10 trees; 3 of them being very short and small, while the others were tall, extremely green and thick, and it was clear that they had been there much longer than the other smaller trees. There were 7 shrubs in my sight of view and lots of green grass. Although there was a concrete walkway and green tables and chairs to sit on, the area felt very different than most parts of campus. Because this area was away from the busy buildings that Mason has, it was essentially silent even considering there being 2 other students. After 30 minutes, students came and went, most of them going to class and I found myself alone in this area for the remainder of my time. I recorded 5 squirrels and over a dozen different birds, which was the only sound happening through this experience, other than the shuffling of students rushing to class.