By: Jael Espinoza
So I started my experience with using media consumption for an hour. I came back from my english 302 class that was about a few minutes away from me. I immediately plopped my backpack on my bed, took my shoes off, and climbed on my bed. I then pulled out my phone and started looking through my social media. I started with twitter, and looked at my DMs for any missed messages from my online friends. I click on the GC dm that I belonged with and messaged them for a good 20 minutes. We talked about some of the upcoming movies that had just came out and which ones we liked and I brought up Suicide Squad, which all in all, was a solid movie. Afterwards I scrolled through my feed to see anything fun or interesting. I retweeted a few tweets such as what selfie or post my favorite celebrity posted, liked a few funny tweets from my friends, and tweeted on my own page how my day went. After this, I changed gears and moved on to snapchat and instagram interchangably. I scrolled on my feeds for a while and messaged back to some of my other online friends. I liked some posts from people like Halsey with her promoting her latest album, a selfie from Rihanna, a post congragulating Messi for joining Paris-Saint Germain, and a video mashup of kpop artists dancing to a Doja Cat song. Finally, I hoped on tik tok and scrolled at my feed for about a good 10 minutes. By the time I finished, my hour was done.
For my second hour, I was able to head to the mason pond since my next class didnt start till 4:30pm. On my way I got to grab some chick fil a and walked my way there. As I was approaching the pond, I saw a whole community of local geese in the water. They were standing there for a good minute until they slowly started to emerge from the pond. They were just doing their thing per usual. Once I got to a bench, I sat there and ate my food. As soon as I finished, a large bumblebee swarmed around me for a good 10 minutes. Its buzzing sound was so apparent in my ear that it felt like I was near a beehive. Nonetheless, once I finished my food I began to push myself away from the human aspects of this world. The environment was very warm, yet had a distinctive breeze that blew on my face. I then looked up to the sky and it was calming, it wasnt sunny nor was it rainy, it was a nice balance of clouds and sun. I then looked over to the trees that were facing northeast from where I was sitting. They had a rich variety of green colors, which made them look aesthetically pleasing. Interestingly however, they held such a “presence” to me – like they were watching me. I then observed the aging bench that I sitting on and noticed some of the writing carved in it. One quote that personally struck to me was “Life is cheap, strive for excellence”, and it was a memorable piece of knowledge that I had just grasped. During the final minutes of my hour, I was beginning to fall asleep. The fountain at the center helped mask so many outside noises such as the cars moving and people walking nearby. However, just when I was about to fall asleep, the time was done.
These differing experiences both allowed me to see how I react and live by them. With the first hour, I did what I usually did cause it was considered “routine” to me as I was familiar with it all. It wasnt unusual for me cause social media is what I live with, what I work with, where I get my information and friend connections from. Its technically an intrinsic part of myself, yet its also something that I try to limit now a days. Another thing to note is that whenever I go through social media, I sometimes forget the amount of time it takes for me to go through media. At times it can go from a few minutes to hours nonstop. On the other hand, my second hour in nature was a different approach that Ive only just started really getting into. Time felt slow, limetless, and infinite. It reminded me of old memories, and felt like I had no pressures or responsibilities on my shoulders. Especially since with social media, theres societal expectations that are placed and presented which in turn has caused for some stress on my mental health at times, hence why I try to reduce it. However, when I was in a natural setting, there was a sense of freedom and a close connectedness with myself. That was probably why I almost closed my eyes to sleep. It was definetly a great experience to witness from both ends.
Taken by Jael Espinoza