It’s About Time

 Dissatisfaction and unease had crept into my day-to-day. Everything else being equal, I could only guess the culprit was my online time had become less of a conscious choice than an unconscious habit. 

I awoke to my Facebook feed, and actively consulted and contributed to it throughout the day until I fell asleep. 

At first it was exciting,  but some years after I began, I noticed something was off. While I loved being more in touch with relatives and with friends and coworkers from past jobs, schools and locales, there was a growing unease I sensed in my spirit. Was it fear of missing out? Was it a bit of jealousy? Was it being slightly bored? 

Finally, I landed on the answer. It came down to time. My training as a broadcast news producer for radio and TV newscasts and documentaries helped me identify what was going on that felt so off. 

Hours and minutes are the currency of a news or video producer. A producer uses time segments to plan a television newscast or a documentary project. We use a “wheel“ of 30 or 60 minutes to plan and execute a news program. 

My mental wheel while on Facebook was full of holes. I sensed a problem, but I didn’t know that I could do something about it. 

My feed on Facebook was full of material I would never allow in a newscast or consider newsworthy, joyful or interesting enough for me anyway. 

Finally, it hit me. Because of my experience handling time as a material in my work, I knew what to do: I had to cut. 

Just as news producers had to cut sections out of reports or parts of a program, I had to edit my own use of time. I had to decide what to remove, and what should remain of my Facebook time and experience. 

Changing my media habits was a decision I made to improve my daily life. 

In the past I had quit biting my nails to improve the appearance of my hands. I had quit smoking tobacco when I realized my health was affected. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I quit alcohol because I learned the sugar in alcohol didn’t help my efforts to become healthier. I decided if I wanted to improve my media use, I needed to quit Facebook. 

Here’s what happened when FB and I called it quits. I immediately noticed I seemed to have more time for other more joyful tasks and activities, such as cooking, reading, exercising, or being with friends in person instead of online.

Five or so years into my no-Facebook life, I have finished a novel, landscaped my front and backyard, produced videos, been in a friend’s play, had a Readers Theatre performance of my own play,  and with a friend,  co-founded a zoom writing group that has fed my creative life beautifully. 

It may not be for everyone to quit Facebook cold turkey or even to quit all together. But my other experiences quitting taught me that all or nothing usually works for me. 

For you, other approaches to moderating media use, including setting time limits or for business-related purposes may work equally well. 

For now, I will continue to measure my media use habits by what the no-Facebook experience has taught me: Real life, face-to-face (even on zoom ) experiences with the myriad degrees of information of eye twinkling, stirring shoe soles and nuances that feed the moment’s richness are worlds apart from digital flatness and limits. Being with another person brings me the sense of joy, learning and connection that I find most rewarding.

When you think of your day-to-day media use experience, what parts are most enjoyable and which simply gobble up your valuable time without giving you joy? 

For yourself,  or as a parent and caregiver to children, tweaking, or editing your media use may be worth exploring and experimenting with. 

For one, you may gain more time in your day. More importantly, however, you can model for your family helpful ways to become active rather than passive media consumers by teaching them to direct and drive their media use instead of having it direct and drive them.

My hours on and off media and why it matters

Numbers too large for me to calculate. 

Like so many American children of the 1960’s and 70’s, I practically lived sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the television set.  There must be serious chunks of my brain so steeped in the fiction of the stories and ideas I consumed that they are as much a part of me as my DNA.  

TV was a window to the world. Like so many kids, at my home there weren’t many other affordable past-times such as sports leagues, music or art lessons. There were few parks or public pools, and no museums to hang out in my small town. My older brothers and sister, however, did not grow up with a TV in the house. My family was a bridge between the eras before and after TV's explosive growth.

I grew up and began my life-long study of communication. After college, I worked in commercial and public radio and television.  Ultimately, I obtained advanced degrees so I could teach communication at the college level.  I spent thousands of hours with hundreds of college students over the past 35 plus years, fifteen before the Internet, and the remainder after its arrival. We explored the evolution and business of mass media industries, their impact on society. We studied the emerging Internet-based communication platforms that now form the fabric of so much of our current social, educational and work lives. 

Before and After Smart Phones

Like my generation of test pilot TV viewers, my college students were also test pilots, who lived in the world pre and post the arrival of the Internet and social media platforms. When I compared students engagement in my classes before and after the introduction of the smart phone and social media I noticed a marked decline. 

The distraction of their cell phones on the desk was like an itch they couldn’t help but scratch. The immediate attraction of a new text message from home or from a friend, or a notification from Facebook or Twitter was too compelling to set aside during note-taking for lectures or lesson activities. 

Their focus was lost for a few minutes each time their phone distracted them with alerts or to be glanced at for updates of any kind. After the smart phone interruption was attended to, the student then mentally returned to the course material. There were now gaps in their learning. Time was lost in the ramping up required to catch up. Multiply this by several times each class period by the majority of students.  The loss in learning was the same as if  a student arrived a few minutes late or left early each class period.  A few minutes may not have mattered, but in the aggregate would come to matter quite a lot. I saw the distractions of a smart phone were a disadvantage that out-weighed its advantages.

 

What Tech Hath Wrought

As exciting as technology has been for me professionally (I am retired from teaching and now I write, shoot and edit videos), there are downsides to what tech has brought us. Like that of my students, I notice my ability to focus is a constant struggle. 

Where was I? Yes. That bad. On the surface, I look steady, reliable and attentive. That’s the front yard. Come see the burning dumpster in the back yard, where half dressed projects prance around teasingly, wagging hands and fingers from their ears, wearing socks that don’t match.

I tried hard to focus and stay on task. I wrote daily to-do lists, practiced mindfulness and meditation, and I read and re-read hundreds of self-help books. Yet, the seductive siren call of the screen beckoned. I stopped to read texts, checked to see if there was a new text or email. I stopped and started my work several times every few minutes. I scanned social media, podcasts, and news sites. Just as for my students, time slipped stealthily away for in-real-life pursuits like face-to-face dinners, face-to-face walks with friends, getting to know more people and learn new things. 

As my hours on social media increased so did my dissatisfaction.  At the end of the day, I felt tired of constantly stopping and starting, setting and resetting my focus. I saw the hours slip away from the day and many of my goals recede further in the distance.

Screens accompany us everywhere we go. They help us get where we drive to, and act as our adjunct brains for learning, work and entertainment. Smartphones have become so familiar we often consider them a natural part of our life and home. But our phones and the platforms they contain are not natural. They are an industry. They offer us entertainment and access to information. They then sell our personal information and preferences to others for their advertising and profit.  It is convenient to the industry that we keep thinking of smartphones as tools we employ, rather than see ourselves as employed (and exploited) by these tools. 

Turning An Ocean Liner

The essays and activities in this book are a result of my efforts to do something constructive about my backyard dumpster fire. I want to transform my dissatisfaction with social media and its impact on the quality of our communication. This e-book is a contribution from a teacher in the frontlines of college teaching, whose boots are worn and muddy. 

My goal is to have us rethink our contract with social media. From my classroom experience, I offer ideas and options to parents of children and teens to help them harness the tools in our purses and pockets.  We can set up guardrails of our own design into place and practice, long before regulatory bodies can climb across lobbyists whose job it is to keep us blissfully unaware of smart phones' adverse effects. 

The time has come for my college classroom to spread its message of empowerment and potential into homes and school campuses everywhere.

It is important for us to study how our tech tools, like all tools, can hurt us and our kids, when they are used without preparation or carelessly. Years from now, we may think of our culture's rapid embrace of smartphones as unfortunate, just as we now think about to the dangerous era of dynamite's early days, or when physicians and surgeons were uninformed about germs and refused to clean their hands before operating on a person. So many avoidable deaths. 

Rethinking our relationship to something as familiar as our technology is easier said than done. For me it's been like turning an ocean liner. It takes focus, time and energy.

 The good news is we are not alone on our journey. More importantly, the prize for our efforts is regaining for ourselves and our loved ones the priceless time and experiences that might otherwise have gone unnoticed in moments of distraction.

Are You New To Media Literacy?

Are You New To Media Literacy?

Ugh. Like many new things, media literacy may be hard at first. It was for me. I had to get used to a new way of thinking about my dear old friends, movies, TV, music and books. I was so used to the idea that these shows, movies and books appeared magically from some other world, like fairies or chariots in the sky from religious scriptures.

Demystifying media was uncomfortable at first, like turning the bright lights on in a dim theater. Dorothy pulling back the curtain on old Oz.  

Here are the tools. Are you ready to get started?

Media Literacy Five Questions

If technology tools like social media are your jam, and you want to take your skills to the next level, media literacy will separate the chimps from the King Kongs. The questions and concepts of media literacy are accessible to most if not all students from middle school and beyond. 

Uncovering layers of meaning in a media message by asking the five media literacy questions can be as exciting as finding buried treasure. As a thinker and a creative artist, media literacy can become second nature to you, and a valuable part of your wheelhouse. It happens with practice and over time. 

Media Literacy Concepts
Try this. Pick any random image or any media message from an online source or from a magazine or book. 
Next, look at the image or media message through the lens of media literacy concepts.
Finally, reflect on what in your opinion works best in the image or media message and why. What made the message effective or not?

We love media. For many, it's the friend who is always there for you. Even if we enjoy the comfort that our old friends provide, it is still important to ask critical questions. Because media is not magic, it is a mega million dollar industry. Being media literate means more than having skills to access, analyze, evaluate and create media messages. Media literacy helps us to see media as a business that trades in our attention to make money.  
Knowing who paid for the message, what its purpose is, what techniques were used to catch our attention, how others might see the message differently, and what lifestyles, values and points of view were included and which were excluded help us to see the message from new perspectives. 

 
The Pay Off Is Worth The Work
In my work with college freshmen, I've found that for most students, becoming media literate requires time and willingness to experiment and play with media literacy questions and concepts. We ask deeper questions as we learn about more about media, its business models, history, and powerful impact it has on our lives. The movie lover directs their first feature length project. The doodler of classroom notebooks completes their first graphic novel. The music buff writes her first song and performs it at a talent show. The dancer becomes the choreographer of a stage production. A pastime turns into a passion, a casual interest into a committed creative journey.

The shift happens over time with playful experimenting. The fairies and chariots in the clouds give way to understanding media and its potential for truth telling or truth shaping. 
This is ultimately the most important gift media literacy offers: Use the questions and concepts to identify and prevent persuasive and powerful messages that don't have our best interests in mind. 
Is that worth the time, effort and adjustments of learning a few key questions and concepts? Absolutely. 
Media literacy and its gifts has been one of my life's most rewarding insights. I've been a lifetime student of media literacy and apply the questions and concepts to  my own video and writing projects. I think it's also influenced me to rein in my social media consumption and spend less time doom scrolling or comparing myself to others.  

 

Active Media Use vs. Passive Media Use

Anyone interested in the well-being of infants and children might wonder how much screen time is too much? 

Whether a child's time is spent accompanied by an engaged adult in active, not passive, viewing is equally important.

Infants under the age of 18 months should have no screen time, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.  Babies 18-24 months can watch children's content as long as they are accompanied by a parent or caregiver who can reinforce the lessons with questions and learning. After the age of two, a one-hour time of screen time applies. Check out this brief article with guidelines on infant and children's screen time.

Screens Are Not Baby-Sitters

We know infant care is the most demanding of jobs. While some time in front of a screen is great for adult relaxing, it is the last thing a baby needs. They are not ready for screen time. 

Some images on screens move too quickly for young, developing brains and eyes. Also, viewing material created for older audiences is unsuitable for children and may be confusing. 

Supervision of infants and children's viewing is key.  

Children who use media with no time limits or monitoring from parents or teachers miss out on important opportunities and gains in their skills in socialization. They also unknowingly trade passive viewing and learning for more valuable active learning with engagement, exploration and problem-solving experiences in the real world  . 

 

Tiers of Learning

We are always learning. It is parents and caregivers who decide for kids if their learning is passive or active.

Active learning is better than passive learning. Researchers who study the effects of TV viewing on kids report that children who spend their time actively learning in play, sports, doing art projects, building things, visiting museums, and reading make more gains than children who spend time passively learning in front of the TV screen.

TV screen time vs. Internet screen time

They look the same, and there is a lot of overlap, but one very important difference is that TV programs are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. TV stations can lose their broadcast license if standards for programs are disregarded. That is a strong incentive.

No such guard rail exists on streaming sites including YouTube and other social media that enter the home via the Internet. That's why parents and caregivers need to think of the content of TV and the Internet as being distinct and requiring different approaches. 

Interrupt the Hypnosis 

My busy mother must’ve thought TV made a great babysitter. I was quiet and out of her way for hours in front of the TV. That electronic babysitter, however, was a regulated business. 

Today, anything that comes in to the home via the Internet has no regulation. Content is governed only by the principle that more watching on the consumer's part equals more money for the producers. The consumer's health is of no concern to them.

If screen time is monitored for time as recommended, and when children watch along with their caregiver who actively asks and answers questions about what they both are watching and listening to, screen time promotes learning. 

Without these safeguards, the free and easy babysitter may bring more harm to our kids than benefit, and no one can afford that. 

Why Study Media Messages?

We all use them. We all love them. Media messages are important parts of our lives. 

Fish don't ask about water. Birds don't ask about air. We humans have a more evolved and complex brain than any other living creature. Yet, we often react in the same way to our media saturated environment as our brothers with fish and bird brains. 

Media messages, from those in books, to the latest software, are such a welcome presence in our lives (think all the fun we have). While we spend our time being entertained, they may rob us, without our awareness, of our privacy, personal data and, most importantly, precious time.

This is About Money

Media, for all its attractions, is first and foremost an industry. Media takes our attention and time and uses them to make money. 

We are the product, not the images that captured us. Those are bait. Media companies sell our eyes and interests to advertisers, businesses and mailing lists in order to sell us stuff. 

We are entertained in the bargain. The transaction is ingrained and automatic. Each time we browse, stream or listen to music, a podcast or a book we signal our agreement that the transaction is acceptable to us. 

Until we stop, take a moment, and put a pin in it. 

Try This At Home: Five Questions

Asking questions about the media we are immersed in protects our time and how it's used. Over time we become more conscious consumers of media.  

Welcome to media literacy and its gifts. It is an important road to start on whatever our age. The benefits are enormous. With media literacy, we add to our enjoyment of media, we feel more sure about how we use our time and resources, and when we Don the writer/producer hat to create our own media messages, they are more effective because we are media literate.

Why should we improve our awareness of media? Don’t we have enough to do already?

Fostering a questioning attitude towards media products does not come naturally. An entire army of programmers  exists to keep our attention moving along, not stopping to ask pesky questions. We’re not supposed to stop and inspect media or ask questions about it.

If a media message is a piece of chocolate cake, think of the five questions of media literacy as knowing not only how the cake tastes, but also how the baker made the cake, what is inside it, how long it took to bake it and how and when to serve it. 

Some may be content to have their cake and eat it, without aspiring to know its journey from ingredients to our teeth. Some may be content to know we consumers are the product, not the messages we consume.  

The benefit of asking questions of our media breaks a belief that media messages are akin to magic. We learn that mistakes can happen and the people who create media messages have their own biases and agendas as well as put their pants legs on one at a time. 

Our curiosity about media helps, protects and serves us.  Since our time is limited, it is important to select with awareness and care how we spend whatever time we allot to media.

Questioning Media Messages Is Active

When we passively watch whatever is on the set or find ourselves down another rabbit hole on our phone, we often ask where did all that time go? The five media literacy questions break the spell that media so deftly casts. 

Media Literacy Questions Awaken Us From Slumber  

Dorothy landed in Oz to discover an old man behind a drawn curtain, pulling ropes and sounding otherworldly while putting on a show for his benefit alone. Dorothy and her journey to return home began when she awakened to what she had not known before she drew back the curtain. 

Asking questions around media messages is not something we need to always do, but,  because media messages shape our views and lives, it's something we always need to know how to do.  

Our engagement deepens when we explore the message to uncover assumptions and biases. The practice gets easier, even automatic. 

When we are passive, our minds are unguarded, receptive, and un-questioning. When we ask questions, we shake off our comfort. We lace up our sneakers. This is no longer a sit-down spectator sport. 

Studying a scene in a movie or an image looming over us on a bulletin board can be a way for parents to engage with their kids on values or assumptions. It models to kids that asking questions of media messages is not only allowed but helpful to someone growing up.

Drawing back the curtain to show the hidden sides and angles of any message or story, even one made with multiple millions of dollars, pays us back with even greater riches. Media literacy allows us to thrive, instead of aimlessly wonder as we wander, serving other's interests before our own, in the media rich world that surrounds us.

Consider Technology's Impacts Over Time, Not By Its Bright and Shiny Attractions

Art Quilt by Susie Monday

When You Were Born The Sun Flared

A Day In The Life of A Content Creator

You've probably been where I am. This very day, possibly.  The lure of multi-tasking has me reaching for tasks to do like pieces of chocolate candy to gobble. 

I open a document on the desktop, hear the buzzer on the dryer, jump up and unload and fold clothes, then return to my desk only to notice the unexpected letter announcing my car inspection is now due and I resolve not to be six weeks late, like last year, because it only shortened the time my car's sticker was valid, which was why the notice arrived earlier than I expected. 

What about that document that just opened up on the desktop? What editing idea flew in and left my brain in the turnaround time of a Southwest Airlines jet? 

And why, at this early hour in the day, do I feel exhausted, having only a stack of folded clothes to show for the past 20 minutes of work? How quickly multitasking (like eating candy) becomes an unsettled tummy, feelings of vague anxiety, and tiredness. 

Buzz Buzz Buzz

There goes the dryer buzzer again. I leap for laundry. Maybe your thing is the cellphone, the doorbell or the oven timer. The disruptions of our technology are easily overlooked. Tools like email, texting, remote meeting apps, project management software help us save time and be productive, but if our focus is sliced too thin, how do they impact us negatively?

Most of us know multi-tasking is as seductive as a mirage. Switching focus from one task to another task is both counter productive and draining. 

It's helpful to turn off notifications, leave my cell in another room and use the focus block method, originated by Charlie Gilkey, author of Start Finishing, How to go from Idea to Done. 

Time Is the Overlooked Factor

One reason that multi-tasking with tech tools is tempting, even if we know of the dangers, is that we don't yet know the way technology affects us.  The full impact any technology has on us is only known over time, according to Cal Newport, a Georgetown University, computer, science, professor, and author.  And we're not there yet.

Newport offers two metaphors about how long it can actually take to figure out the best way to use some technologies in a recent interview for New York Times magazine column, Talk, written by David Marchese (Jan. 2023).

When disruptive technology comes in it takes a long time to figure out the best way to use it. When the automobile was introduced. It took a while before we figured out traffic rules, and understood that it can’t just be cars going wild through the street. 

The next is a study from Stanford economist Paul A. David about the introduction of the electric motor into the factory setting. 

Which should’ve been evident in hindsight, was to put a small motor in every piece of equipment to better control the machine. Yet, in real life, that actually took 20 or 30 years... history tells us that it will probably take a generation to figure out what the best kind of collaborative cognitive work looks like when we have external computational aids connected by high-speed digital network. "It’s going to take a while.“

If you were midway driving to a destination or half finished packing a bag for a vacation, it would be helpful to study a map or review your packing list. 

To grow in our understanding of how a technology like TV, Tik Tok or gaming affects us pro and con, wouldn't it help for us to telescope-out to an expanded scale to recognize that, like cars and motors in factories, it may take years to know its full effect on people? 

Don't Thow Out the Video Game Console
With The Bath Water

Humans are capable of amazing creations. Think of life-saving technologies, medicines and social policies that improve health and educational attainment for more of us, but as the tech world rolls out new products daily, keep in mind the adage "only time will tell." 

We love our tech tools and toys. We can continue to use them, but let's not not be blind to their misuse.  Let's dare to ask the hard questions. The workplace is crawling with computational aids, yet how's that affecting our innovations, productivity and work relationships?  

How far along are we in knowing the impact of smart phone use on family relationships and on children's development? While we wait, let's do something about the girls' whose lives are in danger due to social media.

Over time, we have learned some innovations need to be rethought. Think of the atomic bomb and other weapons. 

Thomas, Midgley, Jr. 100 years ago invented both leaded gasoline, and the first commercial use of chlorofluorocarbons that would create a hole in the ozone layer. It took us 100 years to figure out how damaging these innovations were to become. 

Interruptions and disruptions will always parade before our attention. Protecting our focus may be a powerful way to protect our creativity and contributions to humanity.  In the push for market roll-out and adoption, let's keep in mind what early media theorist Marshall McLuhan observed: All technology contain "unobserved" and "unanticipated" cultural implications  that wash over us and change us without our even knowing." Except over time.

Stories R Us

 Screen-Time vs. In Real Life (IRL)

Does your tech use help or hurt your relationships?

In a technology-rich culture such as ours, relationships with family, co-workers and friends can suffer when we don’t take the time to know each other in real life (IRL) as deeply as we can.  We can easily find ourselves spending more time facing screens than spending face to face time with the people in our lives who we care about most. There's a reason for that.  The entire tech, entertainment and e-commerce industries depend on us staying online.

Time flies. Trust erodes. Screens steal. Whether movies, TV, smart phones, tablets or desktops, screens take our attention, make money for someone else and leave our neglected IRL relationships lacking joy, depth and trust.

Stories Produced For Commercial Consumption 

True, stories produced by professionals for mass audiences to make a profit are entertaining and amazing. They must be compelling in order to earn what they cost to make! There are teams of engineers who work to keep us engaged, captured and delivered to advertisers. 

Stories About Our Lives and Journeys Build Relationships 

Our own stories have an even greater value. They are part of how we know ourselves and let others in to know us, too. Storytelling is our heritage as humans. Long before we drew on cave walls or wrote with the first alphabet, we taught and learned by speaking and storytelling.

 Stories tell others who we are and what we have learned. They contain the past and the present. They are a gift to the listener and the storyteller, who remembers something important and shares it.

 Strengthen Your IRL Connections

There is a great hack for building our IRL relationships, and it is as old as humanity. It is storytelling. 

If you’re new to storytelling, here are a few guiding ideas.

1.    Start by listening. Ask family members or friends a question only they could answer, such as What was the best meal you’ve ever had? Who was your favorite teacher and why? Story themes can include thought provoking questions such as “Don’t believe everything you think”, or the tell about the time you used your wits to get out of real trouble.

2.    Listen to good stories at sites like The Moth. Notice what you like about a story,  how it starts, develops and ends. Is there a lesson learned or is a truth revealed?

3.    What kind of story do you like to listen to or tell?  What gives you a most pleasure or delight? There is no one formula to storytelling.  Just as there are many genres in literature, from comedy and romance to suspense and mystery, you get to decide what kinds of stories you prefer telling and how to tell them. 

     It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

I’ve enjoyed the best stories with family and friends in cars on long drives. The lights are dim, the road hums beneath us, we’re strapped in our seats and we are all ears. There are comfortable silences. One story prompts another person to tell their’s.  

Story Telling is Our Human Heritage

One of my most valued theorists and guides in my field of study, Communication studies pioneer, George Gerbner, connects our humanity to stories succinctly. 

“Indeed, story is the best word I can find to designate the key feature and most distinctive characteristic of human communication. More than any other, Homo Sapiens is the story-telling animal. Unlike any other, Homo Sapiens lives in a world erected, experiences, and conducted largely through many forms and modes of story-telling.”