Brandon Lo Iacono

Intro to New Media

Professor Crout

9/22/2016

How People Changed Media

Introduction

Technology has been ever changing, and has advanced a lot further than most people

would have ever thought would be possible. The ways that media has grown with how we use it

is amazing as it has changed society as a whole with the way that we live our lives. People are

constantly buying the newest phone, the newest computer, the newest handheld device and it is

fascinating to see how people are causing the need for more products to be produced to help

make their life better. Whether that is a good or bad thing is hard to say, as it is almost based on a

person-to-person case. People are using the media to change the world around them, and to also

help change the media that we all tend to use in the world today.

Personal Experiences with Media

Since I was very young, I have had tons of experience with media in all of its different

forms. As a kid I was able to get the newest video game consoles and computers, which kept me

up to date for the most part with the ever-advancing media. When I got a little older I was able to

get a camcorder to start making my own videos that I would later start to put onto YouTube

because it was a passion I always had. My parents were always filming and taking picture of my

siblings and I as we were growing up, and I always liked using the camera and taking pictures

along with them, which helped develop my film-making hobby.

I have only used media more and more over the years, as when I was old enough I got a

cell phone, which at the time was just a flip phone. I was a little late to get a smartphone, but that

was mainly because my parents felt that they should wait to buy me one since I was still too

young for one. Eventually in high school I got a smartphone, and I used it what some people

might have thought to be too much. It opened up even more ways for me to stay in touch with

people through social media without the need of a computer. Even though I used my phone a lot,

I still preferred the use of a computer whenever I had it around.

Computers have always had my interest, as I would like to mess around with them as

much as possible to find out how they worked. I would constantly mess with programs to find

out how to use them front and back, especially when I would use programs such as Windows

Movie Maker and Adobe Premiere to edit videos I had made. I love to go and edit videos, I never

understood why but it is just something I find calming to do. Sometimes I will spend hours just

editing videos just to learn new things or to mess around with new ideas I had. I tried to make

these programs work exactly as I needed them to.

As media is always changing, I am hoping to adopt the new forms of media into my life

as I have been throughout the previous years of my life. I like the idea of being able to mess

around with new technologies to get to know them for further use in my everyday life. I will

usually use new media that relates to me more than others, whether that be new video game

consoles or new software for my computer. I like being an early adopter for things because it

makes me feel like I can see what it shapes into after everyone is able to get their hands on it.

Media is a very important to my life as it has slowly been integrated into my life as many other

people have experienced, and I can’t see myself being the way I am without the media that I use.

Even though media has impacted my life as much as it has, I do find that I sometimes

rather isolate myself from other people to be on the media that I use. I have noticed this

especially at the beginning of high school, which made me work towards not being so isolated. I

tried not to let media shape me into an isolated person, so I found ways to have it be more related

to my life in the ways I used it. Instead of playing video games or going on social media all day,

I got a better camera and went outside more. I also used programs such as Skype to keep in touch

with friends that I may not have been able to hang out with at the time to make sure I could stay

a little social even without being around the. I also changed the way I played video games by

trying to get all of my friends together if we decided to play games instead of being at home

alone doing it. Media can lead to some severe isolation upon the user if they aren’t careful.

Media Usage

Day 1 Day 2

Time Watching TV 10 minutes 0 minutes

Time Watching Web Media 4 hours 2 hours

Time Reading on the Web 3 hour 2 hour

Time Using Computers 8 hours 6 hours

Time Playing Video Games 2 hours 2 hours

Time Talking on Phone 0 minutes 0 minutes

Texts Sent 5 sent 23 sent

Texts Received 12 received 56 received

Emails Sent 0 sent 0 sent

Emails Received 0 received 3 received

Instagram Posts 1 post 0 posts

Tweets 0 tweets 1 tweet

Listening to Music/Radio 10 hours 8 hours

The two days I chose to record were pretty normal, but one abnormality I noticed was

that I texted a lot less than normal on the Sunday. The chart shows that I do spend quite a bit of

time using different forms of media as I have previously mentioned. I spend most of my media

time on my computer and phone either on social media or using apps such as Skype to talk to

friends. Any other time spent on my computer is usually for school. There was also a ton of

music and radio usage because I will more than likely have music playing when I’m in the car or

whenever my computer is on. I realized that a lot of my media usage at home tends to be

somewhat related to school work or personal projects that I happen to be working on.

I think that my media usage makes me both more efficient and less efficient when I am

trying to get work done. My computer and phone can help me get work done, as it can be easy to

look up research online, but I can also sometimes get distracted due to texts and other messages I

can receive. If I am not too interested in work my mind tends to want to wander off to websites

or games that keep my interest more than my work does. So sometimes it can be nice to have this

media, but other times it can get bad.

McLuhan’s Theory and How it Relates to Me

The author McLuhan wrote about his theory of media usage and how it relates to people

by saying that technology will advance throughout our lives, but people are the one’s who shape

and cause media to advance based off of previous ideas and thoughts that are made possible with

newer advances. This basically means that with new media, such as phones, computers, and

programs will cause people to form the new advancements within those fields. Such as when a

new iPhone comes out, other phone companies might take the advancements and/or additional

features and put those into their phones and build off of them causing more advancements in the

field. People are constantly causing more advancement in the media field to happen.

This is very relatable to my life as I see this happening all the time, and I somewhat

contribute to this. I am constantly adapting to the newest advances in media and trying to use

them to my advantage. The same is also true for other people, as new media forms people to

want to make advancements to the already existing media. Advancements are always happening

with media, with another example of cell phones were companies are constantly finding ways to

upgrade their phones based on designs and ideas they once thought were impossible.

Media that I use are constantly changing at what feels like a rapid rate. People might

think that this is bad because of media sort of being overflowed with new developments, but I

think its a good thing. It gives people choices on how to receive and use their media. I think it

also helps with the advancements of media because it collects the many ideas of people out there

who see what the people want and try to develop something that can do what they want. This in

turn lets other people build off of those developments making it so that things could possibly get

better for those who want it faster and more efficiently than it could have before.

Conclusion

McLuhan theorized that new advances in technology happen, and people are the ones

who chose how the technology evolves further. He seemed pretty accurate with what he said. He

was able to let people know that we are sort of in control with the way that things advance, and it

sort of implies that the way we advance things makes it so that piece of technology makes life

easier for us. Personally I agree with this, as I am constantly changing the forms of media I use

because media is constantly changing based on the way people make them advance in. People

are always putting ideas into use when new forms of media come out, making it so things are

always changing for the better. People are changing the media we use. It has been like that for

years, and will continue to be like that for all of time.

Comps Analysis

The First design I chose was the design of FF3300, which is a very symmetrical two

color design. There are headings on top of both pages, relevant to the article itself with unique

designs to make them stand out. Both pages have important quotes above and below the

paragraphs of text to help further points or to give more context to the reader. This design isn’t

too relevant to my work, but I thought it would work nicely just a basic design for the auto

ethnography. The simplicity would be good to mimic especially for the paper.

The second zine I chose was that of a Huck magazine. I thought it would fit well

with my paper because the magazine uses pictures throughout to help illustrate their articles. The

also have text fitted around the pictures with different shapes all around the page to help fill

empty space. A lot of the page keeps a simple black and white design, while the pictures show

some color. I would take the way that the pictures are placed throughout the pages, and the way

the use shapes to fill empty spaces along the text. I could place pictures throughout to help

illustrate my paper and to give the reader an idea of the ever growing media we have.