Note: I decided to track my media usage on a day off from work.
6:00 a.m.: Wake up, and I’m sure a lot of us may have this habit as well, but I scroll through my Instagram, Twitter/X, and TikTok social media accounts for about 10 minutes before I actually get out of bed. I do this to get myself updated on any new news I may have missed, even though not much usually happens over my mere 7-8 hours of sleep.
6:30 a.m.: I’m currently dealing with a sinus infection, so I’ve been doing a lot of resting. After taking my medication, I laid in bed for a few hours and did some Netflix binging. I decided to rewatch a few episodes of a Chinese drama called Hidden Love.
10:00 a.m.: I needed to move around a bit, so I played music on my Bluetooth speaker while cleaning my room. I stream all of my music through an Apple Music subscription.
I have a hard time focusing in silence, so more often than not, there’s some sort of “white noise” being played while I’m doing tasks.
11:30 a.m.: I chatted on the phone with my family using FaceTime.
12:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.: I am a huge sports fan, including professional wrestling. Once a month, WWE livestreams a new Premium Live Event (PLE) exclusively on Peacock. The device I use to stream these events depends on where I am. I was home that day, so I watched on my TV.
4:00 p.m.: After every PLE, I scroll through my Twitter/X timeline to see what the internet wrestling community has to say about the show. I had my fair share of Twitter exchanges this time around sharing my own opinions as well as discussing certain aspects of the show with fellow fans. I also like to check WWE’s official Instagram account to see additional pictures and videos that weren’t shown on TV.
5:00 p.m.: After that, I switched over to Hulu. My Hulu subscription doubles as a cable-like subscription with live channels, so I turned on the ESPN channel to catch up on college football news and highlights that I missed.
While that was playing in the background, I did some studying on my computer. This consists of watching educational YouTube videos and reading lots of online articles from sources like the New York Times, Washington Post, and NPR. While reading and watching, I take notes via a paper notebook. I’ve tried to use my iPad for note-taking, but I feel I retain information better by actually taking hand-written notes.
After I finished learning, I checked my school email for announcements and grade updates.
6:00 p.m.: The sports-watching continues as I watched the Alabama football game, once again on the TV. My mom and brother were actually there in-person, so they were texting me throughout the game.
I’ve had the same clear phone case since I bought my phone in 2022, meaning inevitably, it has turned yellow. While watching the game, I did some Amazon shopping on my phone to search for a new phone case, although I didn’t end up buying one. For some reason, I like to wait for a few days before I make online purchases just to make sure I’m not just buying things I don’t need on a whim or out of boredom.
9:00 p.m.: I’ve never cared much for reading books, but lately, I’ve been trying to do some reading before bed. I’m currently reading a (physical) book on Greek/Roman mythology. I find all kinds of mythology to be quite fascinating.
10:00 p.m.: I’m someone who needs some background noise in order to sleep. So, I either have whatever video/TV show/movie I decide to turn on playing on my laptop, or I play my “Sleep” playlist on my phone on very low volume.
How credible are my media sources?
To be honest, I would give the sources I use, which are mainly social media, a medium-level credibility score. This is because when it comes to getting updates on my interests, such as sports or music, I follow accounts that I feel I can rely on. But when it comes to more serious news, such as politics, social media does a lot of agenda-pushing and spreading of misinformation, so I have to take everything I see with a grain of salt and try to form my own opinions.
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