Media consumption in a week

For the past week, January 31 through February 6, I have been trying to keep track of my daily media consumption.  I do not really read any hard copies of media, like newspapers or news magazines.  The only physical media I read this week was, maybe sadly, an Us weekly magazine since my girlfriend’s family subscribes to this magazine and I am constantly at their house, so I may have glanced at an article or two.  Even though I did not read any this past week, occasionally I will read TIME magazine or Sports Illustrated when I have a chance. 

However I do spend some significant amount of time watching television.  The television shows or movies that I do watch either come physically watching the T.V. or from my laptop.  I would say that I on average have a show or movie on about 3 to 4 hours during the weekday and closer to 5 to 6 hours on a weekend.  However, most of the time I have the T.V. on in the background while I am doing other tasks.  For example, while doing homework, eating or surfing the internet I generally have the T.V. going on in the background (even as I am typing this blog I have Rocky I on AMC on in the background).  When watching television my favorite and most frequently watched channels tend to be ESPN, TBS, Nick, Comedy Central, FoodNetwork, the CW, AMC, and any other premium movie channel.  Again, most of the time these are just on in the background, the only time I get to intently watch shows that I am interested in is on my laptop.  I generally watch all the new episodes of Modern Family, Men of a Certain Age, and Jersey Shore.  I also frequently download or stream movies too, since that is probably my favorite type of media. 

Now I spend most of my available free time surfing the internet, unfortunately I may spend too much time on the web when I should be doing homework or paying attention in class.  Most of my time is spent on google, facebook, yahoo, jackthreads (a men’s clothing website), espn, various new hip hop music sites, and throughout the past week I have been on different consumer websites as it is Valentine’s Day soon and my girlfriend’s birthday is coming up.  I generally do spend about six plus hours on my laptop depending on the day.  It is used for work and entertainment.  It seems that now I cannot really go a day without using my laptop or the internet.

Also, some extra sources of media that I am constantly using throughout the day are my android smart phone.  This has probably become my newest and most prevalent source of media entertainment since it basically does everything I need brought all onto one medium.  I am constantly texting or calling people, using the 3G internet, just playing video games when bored. 

I do think that when it comes to media consumption and the mediums through which I gather it is typical of any person my age and in my demographic.  I think the biggest indicator of this is the advertisements that are constantly thrown at me and others of my demographic.  For me it seems like the advertisements that I am most bombarded with is that of most generally consumerism that is typically supposed to turn me into the socially perfect man or person.  Advertisers are not subtle in their attempt to coerce me and others into buying their products in order to become someone better than I already am.