MM 3223 - Katherine Ledbetter

  Covid-19 and Its Effect on International Media Usage The coronavirus pandemic changed many parts of our daily lives, our media usage included. From spending month in shutdowns with not much else to do but occupy our time with technology, to spending quarantines scrolling through social media, and even education turning remote, media became a necessity in most of our lives. Personally, I remember days during the shutdown where I took advantage of streaming services and laid on the couch, for longer than I would like to admit, watching TV. Additionally, during my 10 day quarantine when I was COVID-19 positive, I spent every hour that I was not sleeping either streaming a show, scrolling through social media, or attending lectures over my computer. At the start of 2020, we could have never imagined just how much our lives and global media usage would come to be impacted over the next year. One of the biggest issues relating to the increase in media usage because of the coronavirus...

            Imagine being so addicted to something that you must use it as soon as you wake up, as well as right before you go to sleep, if it was not a factor in keeping you awake. Not to mention, you have to use it so often throughout the day, that if you do not, you feel like you might go crazy. Well, that is how most of us are with our phones, me included. That is not an easy thing to admit that I am so dependent on a rectangle, but with how technology has evolved, it is hard not to be. Having the ability to get answers to practically any question, issue, or need within seconds just at your fingertips makes the addictive usage of phones seem justified. Not only the ability to access information makes phones to useful. Phones can connect people who are states, countries, and even continents apart, almost instantaneously. Justifying an addiction seems like a way to seemingly deny the fact that it exists, but technology controls practically everything...