We are all too much under the control of material things, and too slow to recognize the power of thought

For this week i wanted to talk about the article forgotten readers by Elizabeth McHenry. in the article she talks about black woman clubs, which wanted to enlighten black women to become functioning citizens in society.  in the article a club member is quoted saying “We are all too much under the control of material things, and too slow to recognize the power of thought”. i completely understand this quote. in a sense this is the mindset of many people in society.  students on many levels are told to go to school and learn to work and live the life they want. many take the knowledge they learn to better their life in material ways. either for better clothes, cars, or homes. few people take the knowledge they gain to better their mentality, spirit, or even relationships. i believe the elders telling kids to go to school to live a better life, has been taken in terms of bettering our materialistic life. ive met many smart intelligent people who seem to have everything in the world but are mentally and spiritually weak. the knowledge they gained was used to fulfill their material void and not otherwise. this quote made me think of all the knowledge i have and how i use it to better my materialistic void or spiritual void. it made me wonder how how could use my knowledge to fulfill my life journey. instead of using it for material things, im interested on knowing how to manipulate my smarts to satisfy both my material and spiritual realms

Reading the article im a addict, made me reflect on my younger days on social media. as a young kid, i seen everyone on social media living happy lives, doing fun things, or having hundreds of friends. for a long time i believed social media was reality and this hurt my self esteem. to feel included i made multiple social media accounts( Instagram, Myspace, Facebook). i would post exaggerated pictures of myself having fun, going out, or socializing with people i didn’t even know. i enjoyed the likes and attention that i received online but i was still the same marckell as before, nothing changed. i was making more friends online than in my real life which left me wanting more.  slowly i found myself faking pictures of fun happy moments for the sake of likes. i mimicked other famous users pictures and actions with nothing to show for it. i was just spiraling in a lonely desperate depressed state of mind. looking back at this time of my life, i hate how naive i was believing the internet.  i overextended myself for attention and likes. my whole thinking was superficial. i never worked on myself as a person and this was clear in my social life. i lost a lot of relationships and potential relationships because of how superficial i was. everything was for appearance and not for the enjoyment of the moment. it took me a while to realize the faults in my thinking and started to take initiative to lessen and change my social media presence. i definitely use it less, i post more of my real life family and “real” friends, post what i feel, pretty much the real me. i still find myself trying to have a one up on others, posting exaggerated pictures but its definitely more  limited. being somewhat of an addict to social in helped me gain a better perspective of myself. i understand now to appreciate what i have and who i have in my life rather than focus on what others have.  although i dont use any social media platform as much as i used to, when i do im more conscious of using it wrong. however to my disservice, i still  pay attention to the superficial things online.

Over the weekend starting on Friday I monitored my screen time. This includes any time spent on my phone, TV, and computer. On Friday I spent about 2 hours and 23 minutes on my phone. I didn’t watch any TV and 3 hours and 34 minutes on the computer doing homework. On Saturday I spent about 2 hours on my phone and 90 minutes in front of the TV and I forgot to time my computer time. I’d say about an hour and a half. On Sunday it was about 2 hours on the phone and 3 watching TV and 2 on the computer doing homework. I never realized this but a lot of my day is spent looking at a screen.

Before I began documenting my use of media I wanted to take note of the main sources of media I use day to day. I realized I primarily use three which consist of youtube, instagram, and facetime. I’ve always enjoyed youtube because it gives me access to watch interviews, reviews, and talks from all over the world. I can spend hours surfing through these types of videos and never really hesitating to click the suggested next video. When it comes to instagram that is more pleasure media which I enjoy for entertainment rather than business or learning. Don’t get me wrong, I see so many inspirational things and can learn so much but even if I don’t I honestly still enjoy being on it. Facetime is a big one, I use this app a little too much. I can find myself facetiming up to four people a day, and the conversations for each never go under the half hour mark. In the context of these types of facetimes it also isn’t doing two things vicariously but I usually take the time to sit down and engage in the call.  

This weekend was weird to document my use of media because it was so busy that I didn’t have much downtime to engage in these platforms. I specifically spent 30 whole minutes watching youtube interviews from the new movie Bohemian Rhapsody on Saturday after work. These interviews were around 4 to 5 minutes each and I probably watched a total of six videos back to back. I also had the chance to do some Instagram scrolling on the train Saturday evening and my journey was around an hour long which I spent the whole time refreshing my instagram, along with a hour journey back which also went toward instagram. In regards to facetime even though my Friday and Sunday plans were extremely busy I still managed to get to four calls. Two on Friday morning and two Sunday late afternoon. These calls were specifically from friends in London which due to the distance FaceTime catch ups are the only thing I have to remain in contact with them and I actually see there faces. Each call was definitely a minimum of an hour and half maybe more. Which means I spent a total of almost seven to eight hours on my phone specifically on FaceTime.   

Like I mentioned this was a weird weekend due to the fact I had work, a lot of meetings, and a few deadlines so I wasn’t able to go through my usual media routines. I am sure that I spend way more time on each platform, especially on the weekends when I have time to spare. And if I ever record myself again I will probably be so surprised by the numbers.

“I’m an Addict” was probably the most relatable reading we have read in this class so far. The narrative reflections were a bunch of phrases that I can imagine a lot of people who are part of social media can relate to. “No matter how much I love my own life, someone’s will always be better.” (Tanja, 2014, post-fasting reflections) Having an Instagram made me believe that everyone is doing amazing and one is doing better than the other. I assume this because of the pictures people post and the content they want their followers to see which I am guilty of this as well. I met with one of my friends recently that I haven’t seen in 6 years and we ended up talking about someone we both knew and based on his Instagram, I thought he was doing amazing in his career but then when she told me what actually was happening with his life, I couldn’t believe it.  There was also another quote on Instagram that I saw that said: “Just remember some of your followers actually know you in real life” which made me laugh because I think people get too caught up on social media and forget that. I mean I know no one wants people to think they’re doing badly in life but then it comes to that question do people actually care about us and what we post? I wish I didn’t relate to this but sadly I do and I admire people who aren’t part of social media.

A few weeks ago I got paired to do an assignment with a fellow classmate, as we were doing our project we began talking about ourselves. Towards the end of the conversation I did what I would normally do, and ask for their instagram handle. To my surprise this individual did not have an instagram and wasn’t on any other social network sites. We have got to the point in our generation where it is strange to not be connected in this specific way, meaning the majority of people use social network platforms.What’s so interesting about this article “I’m an Addict” and Other Sensemaking Devices : A discourse Analysis of Self Reflections on Lived Experience of Social Media is it analyzes social media and it big percentage of users. My initial thought was they were going to track the amount of hours spent on social media then the content people are posting which shows a reflection of who a person is etc, but their methods were quite different. They instead collected their data by gathering young people and “making sense of their own lived experience through self reflexive auto-ethnographic narratives” (4). By allowing the participants to analyze their own habits on social media it allowed researchers to use these experiences to generate a overall shared experience. By teaching the young people methods of collecting data like auto-elicitation exercises, they were able to get written accounts and even video to base their conclusions. In contextualizing all the data they needed to look for patterns and create this “one” to represent the majority of people. Seeing this makes me think of the collaborative effort of note taking and systems that put all this data together. For such a social media driven world today, these findings give us more insight to what were involving ourselves in, and this method of data collecting is more important than ever.

This is the story of how my aunt “murdered” her husband.  Nobody in my  really knows the true version to her husbands disappearance but this is my favorite version.

 

My aunt was a very devoted wife and she was happy to have a husband to take care of. One day she decided to make a special dinner for him being that he would come home from work looking for a hot meal.

Anticipating the time, watching the screen door to see him walk to the roadway. Hearing footsteps on the gravel outside, the jingle of his keys, she hurried to greet her husband at the door. 

Ignoring her  he went to make himself a drink. With his back to her and sitting, he continued to drink and be silent. He couldn’t face to tell her the truth. For months now he thinks their marriage has run its course. He tried to find days and times to express his truth, the truth became harder to tell when they learned she was pregnant. 

 

So he comes out and tells her he wants a divorce and leaving her for another woman. Rumor of that story is the woman was a close friend to my aunt. Even back then who could you trust. 

 

At the moment he his continuing to talk my aunt isn’t hearing anything. Six years of marriage and he decided he wanted it to be over. What about the child they were having? How could he do this? 

 

 

Fast forward 57 years later my aunt never told a soul the real story to what happened to her husband. She would always wink and say with a smile “I’ll never tell”.