By: Jamileth Picavia
For my first hour, I was consumed by the three big apps; Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube. Constantly interchanging between all three. I found myself scrolling and scrolling, losing track of time, and making this 1 hour of consumed media fill up quickly. I started with the usual Twitter feed check, seeing what was trending at the time and what news there was. As I did this, I began to realize how catered my Twitter feed was to my interests; filling up with mostly art, music, and funny posts about shows I would watch, as well as the occasional cute cat pictures. The media I was consuming was tailored to me specifically; it was like having my own little world in my hands. I began to understand how closed off from the “real world” I was because of the specific posts and tweets I was seeing. This one tiny app was able to distract me from whatever was going on in the world even for just a brief moment, but I suppose that is the purpose when it comes to these tailored feeds. Similarly, as I transitioned into checking out Instagram, I found myself in the same situation. My explore page was filled with art varying in all types of media from paintings to digital. My main feed consisted of friends and family posting about their lives, from what they were up to this weekend to big life updates. As I caught up on these types of news, I would get distracted once again and go back to Twitter to see if anything new was on my feed, eventually then going on to YouTube to watch videos on whatever was recommended to me. And just like that, the 60 minutes of consumed media was complete; not much about the real world was learned but for that time I got lost in my own little catered world.
From a distracting little world, I stepped outside and faced the real world in front of me. I spent my hour in a naturalistic environment at a small little park near my apartment complex. I set my phone aside to prevent myself from getting distracted, and so I sat and embraced what was around me. I realized that when I took a moment to look around, I was able to point out a lot of small details about the environment. It may sound strange but I was able to listen to the breeze around me and feel the warmth of the sun against my skin. It was quite sunny and there were quite a bit of people outside also enjoying the weather. Even though I was in a park, I could still hear the busyness of the streets around me from the cars. This made me realize how much information you’re able to learn from just looking around your surroundings. Even though I wasn’t at the site, from a distance I could sirens from a firetruck which I assumed was on its way to help somewhere. From looking at the people around me, I could tell schools were just let out since there were more kids and their parents stopping by the park. All these little details became more clear to me when I just took a moment to take in the environment. I was able to better understand the different components that fill an environment, from animals to people, to the type of weather on that specific day.
After immersing myself in both an hour in consumed media and a natural environment, I was able to learn a lot about how different my perspectives were in each. For instance, in my hour within consumed media, I was able to multitask and jump around the apps on my phones based on whatever piqued my interest. Whereas when I was outside, I found myself less distracted and taking note of the details around me. However, after reflecting, I realized the reason why I may have had my eyes more open while outside may have been due to the tendency of always having something within my hands to fiddle with and distract myself. I had become so used to relying on my phone to keep me busy that when I didn’t have it, I was forced to look around me in better detail. I think this experience was very eye-opening as it made me realize how much we tend to rely on consumed media for getting news about the world around us. This experience also made me realize that I should take more moments to immerse myself with nature with no distraction, not even music from my phone. The brief hour nature was very calming and allowed me to embrace my surroundings. I will take this experience as a sign to become more in tune with nature and all it has to offer.