Continuing my media awareness experiment – essentially watching how I consume media and what I see in media consumption, and what I learn from it.
Since I gave up on cable, I’ve noticed my socializing patterns have changed. It’s stunning to me how much of our socializing is centered around media – television shows, movies, etc. Sure this is understandable, but it seems almost dominant, and also seems odd when there’s so much else in life that such a great deal of time is devoted to media.
This also makes me think that, when people study media, we’re often overwhelmed by “there’s so much” and forget to ask “what’s it all for.” As soon as I began noticing the prominence of media, especially big media, in our culture, the “what for” question kept popping up – and there’s no one answer.
However I think we’re unaware of how much of our lives are influenced or driven by television, movies, and publishing. At an age where there are more media choices – and more ways to choose them – we may be in some pretty seismic shifts as peoples awareness and choices change.
That also means changes in social patterns.
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.