Media Cleanse
YOUR ASSIGNMENT:
ALA 2 Media Cleanse Assignment,
We check our phones roughly 150 times per day. The average cell phone user just simply touches their phone at least 2,617 times per day. We’ll dedicate roughly 5 years of our life to Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Snapchat. There are 2.789 billion active social media users. That’s 37% of the population that is on social media.
We are constantly interconnected with our close friends, family, and strangers around the world with a click, a post, a swipe, and a double tap. How does 24/7 access with others affect our relationships? Well, sometimes not in the most positive light.
Studies show that couples report low levels of satisfaction in their relationship and life overall when a partner spends time on their phone. Our actions, inactions, and distractions all convey a message to the people and world around us.
This leads us to our next assignment, a social media cleanse.
I want you to delete your social media apps from your phone for exactly one week and keep a journal filled with thoughts and feelings. That’s right, we’re going old school.
If you break and check social media, don’t beat yourself up, your grade won’t be penalized, but definitely put it in your assignment. Here’s what needs to be included in your assignment submission paper:
Write down the date you delete all of your apps.
Answer the following questions about your social media habits at the beginning of your cleanse.
How many social media apps do you have on your phone?
If you had to guess, how many times a day do you think you check them?
What emotions do you associate with social media?
Do you pick up or look at your phone when someone is having a conversation with you?
Do you feel like you compare yourself with others’ “highlight reels” on social media?
If you do happen to check social media during your cleanse, that’s okay, but please write down the date you re-downloaded your apps and make a checkmark in your “journal” (this could be Notes on your phone, a Google doc on your laptop, in an actual notebook, etc.) every time you open a social media app.
Throughout your cleanse check in with yourself emotionally. I want you to have at least 7 entries addressing the following subjects.
Focus— Can you tell if there’s an increase or decrease in your ability to focus on assignments, conversations, or even television shows/movies?
Connectedness— Do you feel like you’re more connected with your friends, family, romantic partners? Or do you feel like you’re missing out on experiences and information about them?
Catharsis— Do you feel more or less stressed/anxious since eliminating your time on social media?
What role do you think social media plays in society? Do you think it influences media consumption? Freedom of speech? What is social media’s responsibility in 2018/19 ?
The point of this assignment is to assess your connection to social media and see how it affects your overall well-being while interpreting its role/responsibility in mass media.
TO COMPLETE THIS ASSIGNMENT:
Follow the cleanse directions above.
Answer precisely the 5 specific questions above. Number them. Put your journal entries below those answers. Concise and targeted answers vs. bluster and BS.
12 point font, preferably Times New Roman. 1.5 to double spaced.
Put your name, MMC 3602 and Semester at top of page. File name: YourFullName_ALA-2 Cleanse_F18.pdf
Convert your paper to PDF and upload to this assignment page.
Solution Preview
Questions
1) I deleted all my apps on Friday 19th October 2018, and the cleanse was to run up to 26th October 2018.
2) Answers to questions about my social media habits at the time I began the cleanse.
I have approximately eighteen social media apps on my phone. I have twitter, facebook, WhatsApp, messenger, telegram, Viber, Hangouts, and palmchat which I use to communicate via chats and messaging. Instagram, moments, Tumblr, Google + and Snapchat I use to communicate through the posting of photos. I also use skype and facetime to communicate with friends and family living in different states, and I don’t get to see often.
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