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 for silen

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 specific quiet times in the day where her children read rather than watch shows