media diary

I decided to keep my media diary in the beginning of December, namely between the 9th and 13th. The period before Christmas holidays was quite busy so I am not sure if my usage of media was quite relevant but I noticed throughout these five days that I have mostly the habits I have when my schedule is not that busy. I have to mention a detail which I consider important: I have lived without a TV set for almost five years now and I do not intend to buy one. I “divorced” from the TV when I moved to Bucharest and started my studies. Since then computer has replaced it somehow. Even now when I use TV I watch mostly Discovery Channel, History Channel or Animal Planet. If there are good movies in the programme I do not hesitate to watch either, but mostly I watch movies on my computer, online or on DVD. I dislike totally entertainment shows like Big Brother or the kind and I do not watch news unless I am around TV by mistake and hear them. I do not read newspapers, maybe Helsingin Sanomat, the online edition and National Geographic Magazine and Museum (the online magazine of American Association of Museums).
I use mobile phone quite rarely and that is only for messages and conversation, when strictly necessary. I prefer sending messages using my computer. Sometimes I get confused in all the functions that my phone has, I do not know to use them all. I also use the iPod mostly when travelling or walking. I noticed I spend quite a lot of time in front of the computer mostly chatting with friends, reading all kinds of articles and doing my homework. I use the computer both at school and home but mostly at home, as at school I do more reading than surfing the internet. The average time spent online varies depending on the day of the week. Usually in weekend I can spend a whole day in front of the computer. I use Facebook everyday, including the chat, Farmville and Yahoo Messenger mostly. I usually leave them open and I go on doing my stuff until somebody talks to me. I also use Google for finding the information I need and most of the times I end up on Wikipedia, jumping from link to link. I enjoy watching movies a lot, especially horror movies and for that I use tvshack or Youtube. I also use Youtube for listening to music as I do not carry around with me all the cds. I usually prefer listening to metal combined with classical music but other genres such as jazz and folk music are also appealing. I check my Yahoo mail and university portal everyday and most of the times I have mails to reply to. Sometimes I read other blogs; usually I have some favourite bloggers which I follow regulary and I also have my own blog where I post every month. I don’t have any certain topics, I write what I feel and the number of posts varies depending on what I have to say. I think it is very relieving to keep a blog and sometimes quite fun. Also, the online dictionaries are used often when I have to read or write assignments and I am not sure about the meaning of certain words. It is very difficult to spend one day without using the computer and a computer without internet is kind of useless to be honest. Sometimes, (in exceptional cases) when I do not use the computer for one day I feel like something in my life is missing. I do not know if this is good or bad but I got used to the idea that it is a normal thing of my life. I used to live without a computer not so long ago but I accepted that times changed and I changed myself, too. I am not that lonely anymore now when I can stay in contact with my family and friends, even virtually. If it is to name something I cannot spend my day without, that would be computer with internet connection.

I also kept a detailed media diary for the five days on my personal blog: http://silviadimitri.wordpress.com/category/media-diary/