Music. I thought my media usage was fairly decent- for a college student that is. When you hear about excess media consumption, if you’re like me, your first thoughts tend to go to social media. I even did a media chart, mapping out my daily use (chart below). This made me feel like I was doing great (obviously there's always room for improvement). What I didn’t realize I needed to include was music - really the most used apps on my phone are Spotify/Apple Music/Pandora.   I always have it on- in the background while I study, blasting in the car with my windows down, in my earbuds on campus so I can avoid conversation… my media usage totals went up significantly when I added music. My music isn’t super unclean music or what used to be considered “degenerative” and it isn’t promoting things I morally disagree with… So why does it matter?   Well I realized that most people want music for entertainment, but I was using mine as a filler - not allowing room...

Screen time.  When I think about how much time I spend staring at TVs or devices in general I get concerned, so it makes sense that parents would be worried about media usage with their children. After learning the facts and opinions from multiple sources, I had the opportunity to interview my sister (since I don't have kids) and got her opinion.  My sister currently has three children- three and under- and works full-time. She also had concerns about raising her children in a media-saturated world, especially regarding television, noting that exposure was harder to eliminate and she herself slipped into habits of media usage ( Radesky 2015). Despite using TV as an electronic babysitter when she has work meetings, she still manages their use of media using a multitude of methods:           No tablets or phones           TV cannot be on for more than two hours in one day           They set aside...