Media Deprivation

Thursday March 19, 2009
12AM Normally at this time I would be on the internet, talking to friends until I got tired enough around 1 or 2AM to fall asleep. I usually use my phone for an alarm so I am unsure what to do, because my alarm clock is at school and I do not think I can count on my internal clock to wake me up. Instead of my normal routine spent on my lap top, I will be reading Dear Diary by Lesley Arfin, which I got for Christmas, but never have really have enough time to read at once.

1:10AM I've read about 50 pages and still can't really get to sleep. There's no one awake at my house but I'd really like to talk to someone now. I guess I will just keep reading until I pass out.

11:50AM Yeah, my internal clock sucks.

I don't know what time it is. I am at a restaurant waiting for my mom to meet me at her lunch break. This is really tormenting me right now, because I am pretty anal about knowing the time, and without my phone I don't know what it is. I feel too awkward to ask someone what time it is. What if my mom can't come but she can't get a hold of me?

2:40PM Lunch went fine, and since I have been home I've just been doing laundry and playing with my puppy. I wish the weather was nicer so that I could do something outside. I read an issue of Seventeen magazine, which I have had a subscription of for about 3 years but have been neglecting lately. I am planning on starting homework now.

3:17PM So basically all of my homework involves the internet in some capacity. That did not really take up much time and my sister keeps taunting me to watch a movie because she knows that I can't. At least she is home now because I was getting bored by myself for so long.

4:05PM My 5 year old cousin has been begging to watch cartoons in here and is getting pretty mad that I won't let him. I picked up the book again and I really am enjoying it so much.

6:38PM My friend George is having a house show at his house but I don't know what time it starts. I am afraid that I missed it but I don't really have a way to find out.

8:00PM I came during the middle of the show but it's really good, relaxing music. After a day without music this is so nice. We went to get food after and my friend was annoyed that I made him turn his radio off.

10:00PM Mark is getting a tattoo at this guy Rob's house. My two friends, Lauren and Nick, are here and we are having good conversations. I was getting a little antsy to listen to the radio or check my phone, but there is really no need when my friends are right here to talk to.

12:05AM The second that I could, I turned on my phone and there were a bunch of texts awaiting me! After I did that I got on the computer and checked all the usual sites. Within about 10 minutes on the computer I was bored.

I have recently come to my own personal conclusion that the internet is not fun anymore. A few years, or even a few months ago, I could sit on the internet for hours, completely amused—and completely wasting my time. I do not really have this pleasure anymore, and cannot stand cycling through all of the same sites over and over, waiting for one new thing to pop up. I would be lying if I said this conclusion was not impacted at all by my previously described day of media deprivation. But let me back up first.

My day of media deprivation could be described as slow, boring, insightful, challenging, easier than expected, and even pleasant. The first half of my day was so quiet, with no noise and an empty house. I just kept reading until I could not really sit still any longer. My puppy is nuts and kept me busy for some of the time, but all I really wanted was to take her for a walk. With the weather outside dreary, wet, and cold I felt confined to my house. Once people started coming home I felt a lot better, with people to talk to, although this meant that everyone around was starting to use media or at least wanting to around me. I had to avoid rooms, plug my ears, and cover my eyes to make sure I stuck to the rules of the day, really wanting a true experience. The worst part of the day was feeling so cut off when I had no way to get in touch with anyone to find out what time the house show was starting. Yeah, earlier I could not text my friends random things that had no real meaning, but this time I actually needed some information. It all worked out, but it was a weird experience. Once I was surrounded by a bunch of friends it was easy to not worry about phones or twitter or what song was coming on next. I got wrapped up in being around people in real life, which of course I am used to, but it was nice not having any media-related distractions. I had to force them to comply with my rules, but it was not bad. By the time I got to use my media, I jumped to do it, but did not really feel like I was any happier to be able to use these technologies. My texts were not anything important, there was not much on the internet that mattered, and the television shows were boring.

Media seems absolutely essential and habitual to use on a day to day basis. But this experience of being media deprived only proved that those assumptions are not true. We are just so used to these things in our lives that our main modes for connecting, entertainment, and finding out information. Danna Walker wrote a very accurate description that “Eighteen- to 20-year-olds know in their hearts that electronic media are nearly as dear to their lives as physical nourishment.” Walker wrote an article, “The Longest Day” about when her students had this very assignment. I found that a lot of what her students experienced I agreed with. It was strange to be without this media, but I, just like her students, survived the day and learned some lessons.

Of course, I am not about to cut off all technology and go live by Walden Pond, however I do feel like I want to cut back some of my media usage. My day of media deprivation reminded me how much I love to read and how nice it is to hang out with people without someone turning on the TV, taking out a laptop, or being distracted by a cell phone. My biggest realization was how much I would like to decrease my internet usage. One of my biggest motivations for this is to read more. In “The End of Literacy: Don’t Stop Reading,” Howard Gardner laments how technology has decreased reading of actual texts. This assignment helped me take his opinion to heart and try to change my ways so that I do not contribute to that.

Oral vs. Written Culture

Sitting in my dorm room I see so many different examples of media surrounding me: my friends’ instant message boxes blinking as our conversation unfolds, my suitemate’s music trailing across the dorm for me to faintly hear, the television on to catch the latest Real World episode, my toolbar shows the different programs I have running—Facebook, a friend’s blog, and the movie Blow Up that I will watch at some point. Not only is there all of that, but tons of photographs, posters, and books line the walls and shelves around me. I am bombarded not just in my room, but everywhere that I go with some form of media, just waiting to make an imprint on my mind.

Vocals, instruments, and dialogue escape from all of these digital medias attacking my ears from every direction. Colors, words, and figures are everywhere in sight for my eyes to view and digest. These noises describe speech as a form of communication, while these images describe the form of writing. With the way technology has transformed over time, communication has twisted and reshaped into a multitude of formats. Speech no longer is restricted to reciting great works in order to keep an oral tradition. It has expanded far from that to just the sound that media makes, the voices you hear on the radio and in YouTube videos. Along with changes in speech there also came many different ways to use writing as media. The written media can now be interpreted as your Facebook News Feed or your latest text message. Written communications is not just letter writing and novels, it has expanded to encompass much more than that.

Howard Gardner discusses such changes in his Washington Post article, “The End of Literacy? Don’t Stop Reading.” He says “each new medium of communication—telegraph, telephone, movies, radio, television, the digital computer, the World Wide Web—has introduced its own peculiar mix of written, spoken and graphic languages and evoked a chaotic chorus of criticism and celebration,” giving a great description of how written media has been reinterpreted. This new “media landscape” he is speaking of is broadly defined and used in so many more ways than anyone could have ever imagined and will continue to grow in different ways. While he does not believe that the “disappearance of the material book” will ever be a reality, he does see a huge shift in the way that books are viewed and the different ways that writing can be presented.

In today’s society it is incredibly hard to tell whether speech or writing is more superior. While I feel bombarded with sounds at all times, from all things, I also cannot deny the power of written words and the many ways they have come to be expressed. I honestly believe that writing is a more powerful and domineering form of communication over sound bites that last only briefly. Writing is permanent and put in print can be passed down forever. Also, I believe reading it to be the key to intelligence. In “The Dumbing of America,” also featured in the Washington Post, Susan Jacoby provides her argument that the rise of video has led to “the end of print culture.” Along with this, she believes that it has made American less intelligent overall, only caring about the fleeting video with the sound that sticks with you at the moment, but has no real long lasting qualities. These ideas bring great importance to writing over speech. I feel that my days spent buried in books greatly increased my intelligence, and has helped me read more effectively as well as provided me so much knowledge.

However, Jacoby also discusses how America has an “arrogance about that lack of knowledge” and how society no longer values the great knowledge that written texts offer. Because of this it seems that today’s society has deemed speech far more superior than writing. Speech can be taken at face value, without most people feeling the need to research or delve deeper into what they are hearing. It is seen as much more convenient than reading, requiring little effort on the audience’s part. While decades ago American citizens went to buy maps to follow along with President Franklin Roosevelt’s radio reports, interested in following along with this written tool, as Jacoby describes, this no longer would be so. People would maybe listen in, sure, but to actually look at a physical map no longer seems useful. Why bother looking up locations on a map when you are hearing the information? More likely, people would rather see the president speak on the television, so they could focus in on their appearance and hear the voice associated with the image. And to read an article or address actually written and not spoken by the president? Leave that to the intellectuals! Society does not have the time to sit and read through such a thing when it can be presented for them to listen to, no motivation required.

Gardner and Jacoby both make the point that writing and reading are both immensely important and not to be forgotten over the elusive and easy visual media that viewers have taken precedence over. I would have to agree that our society, especially our generation prefers the visual media (obviously tied to the speech that goes along with it), and has forgotten or at least begun to ignore the power of written media. I myself, while believing in that power, still am majorly guilty of using those visuals and sounds to replace written texts.

At its most simple form, speech was definitely far more superior, but that was because it was before language was ever even written. In that sense orality was the most important, and virtually the only tool for communicating and passing along stories and histories. Back in those far off days they viewed that “all sound, and especially oral utterance, which comes from inside living organisms, [was] ‘dynamic.’” Walter Ong describes this most primitive value of sound in his essay “Orality, Literacy, and Modern Media.” He goes on to talk about the present day form of speech in what he calls “secondary orality,” which he sees as the modern uses of speech in visual and other audio representations. He does not see today’s society as true appreciators of speech: “only quite elderly persons today can remember what oratory was like when it was still in living contact with its primary roots.”

Oral culture has changed in many ways that may not exactly pay homage to those “primary roots.” Nonetheless, today’s society still sees it as a huge step over written communication and media.


Sources:
"Orality, Literacy, and Modern Media" by Walter Ong in Communication in History by David Crowley and Paul Heyer

“The End of Literacy? Don’t Stop Reading” by Howard Gardner
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502898.html

“The Dumbing of America” by Susan Jacoby
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502901.html