By: Carl Malinsky
For my hour of media consumption, I picked up my phone and did what I’d normally do, scroll through social media. First I went to Instagram and saw a post from the GMU Patriot Activities Counsel about Mason Night @ The Nats and that they were selling tickets for $10.50 for the game this coming Saturday. I see some photos from some friends I know. One was at a concert, another went hiking, and another was doing a polo event. I see a post about the LEGO Star Wars video game officially releasing in Spring 2022 after its release date had previously been pushed back due to covid. Next stop I take is Snapchat. One of my friends invited me to a Labor day cookout which I’ll probably go to. I find out on my cousins story that she is visiting Tennessee and that one of my friends is currently in Spain. I continue over to Twitter to see what news I can find. The hurricane Ida hit Louisiana and is a category 4 storm with maximum winds of 150 mph. 500,000 people are without power because of the storm and many have been instructed to seek higher ground to avoid the incoming flooding. A photo of the water shelf of a grocery store during the storm shows a lot of empty space but lots of Dasani. This backs my personal belief that Dasani water is no where as good as the other brands and that the shoppers of this store seem to agree with me. I find that Kanye West has finally released his new album DONDA after its initially release window of July 2020 but was pushed back repeatedly so that he could finish the album. Cobrai Kai on Netflix has been renewed four a fifth season and its fourth is set to release soon. Actor and Emmy winner Ed Asner passed away today at the age of 91. I remember he voiced the Pixar animated character Carl Fredricksen in the movie Up, one of my favourite Pixar movies growing up. I see a post about a reserved table at a Texas Roadhouse to honour the thirteen U.S. soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan. I decided to check the Campus COVID-19 Data to see what the cases were looking like after the first week of classes. As of Thursday, August 26th, there were 8 new positives, all being students and there were 54 students and 7 employees that were active positives within the past two weeks. Finally, there were 3,984 students and 329 employees who got tested in the past week.
For my hour of being outdoors, I drove over to the Ohmic Stream Valley-Burke FÉ Trail, which is a little under five miles from campus. When I started walking out on to the trail, I quickly took notice of how closed off this natural area was when it came to sound. Yes, at times I could still hear cars from the surrounding road, but there was also an “extreme quietness” in terms of the normal anthropocentric noises one would hear while walking about on campus. I was exposed to the chirping on both insects and birds, singing their best hits. There was a small stream that ran alongside the trail and would, in certain locations, give off the babbling brook sound that I love dearly. In the stream I observed some small minnows and a few small fish that were a bit more developed, but that were unable to be identified. Every so often, I would pass another walker or jogger, but no words were ever spoken between us. A simple wave or head nod to keep that anthropocentric noise to a minimum. From this I learned that the trail is frequently used by others and that there is an unspoken greeting with courtesy to others. I noticed some train tracks running parallel to the trail which I imagine are used daily, bringing a rumble and vibration to the surrounding trail and stream, disrupting the natural noise. In the early part of the hour I kept an eye out for a squirrel or two, assuming the area housed a few, and towards the end witnessed one sneaking through some ferns, another playing peek with me from a tree, and one snacking on a nut who allowed me to watch from a few feet away. There was a small area off to the side of the trail where I had access to a rocky and sandy beach on the side of the stream. I went out onto the rocks to see if I could find any natural treasures. There I found a multitude of differently colored stones, a few bivalve shells, two yellow butterflies, and some deer tracks in the sand which showed me that there are indeed deer in this area and that they frequently visit the stream for a drink.
This experience taught me a lot about the amount of time I spend on my phone versus being outdoors and the amount and quality of information that I receive from both. For starters, the hour outdoors went a lot faster for me and was honestly a lot more enjoyable. The hour of media seemed to drag a lot and despite the amount of content I mentioned seeing, there were other pieces of information learned that I did not add in order to save space. I did learn more information while being online though as I had access to multiple forms of media compared to being in an isolated area when doing my hour outdoors. What I liked about being outdoors though is that I could make a narrative for what I saw and heard rather than being given information like the media would. I titled this blog One Hour of Mind Control and One Hour of Controlling the Mind, because to me, the hour of media was more mind controlling and the information felt more forced whereas the one hour of controlling the mind comes from me being able to have my own thoughts and inquiries about what I saw while outdoors. I felt more free outdoors and enjoyed taking a break from the typical mind-numbing control from my phone. At the same time though, I now recognize how quickly large amounts of information are gained from searching through the media whether they affect my life or not when compared to being outdoors.