How The Media Affects My Life Essay, Research Paper

Donna Jirkovsky

Professor Miller

Media and Society

Monday, September 25th 2000

How the Media Effects my Life

One thousand six hundred and eighteen minutes. One thousand six hundred and eighteen was spent by me, on my computer, in three days. That seems to be a lot of time when you think about it, probably just about twenty seven hours. How could all that time be spent at as single machine like a PC. One of the best features of the PC is that you can use many different media forms at one time. I use my PC for communication with my boyfriend who goes to SUNY Albany, to check my email for letters of annoyance from my parents, and to provide me with entertainment. Sometime i also use it for work, but that doesn?t happen to frequently. The best part about that though is that i can do all those things all at the same time. Usually i turn my PC on when i wake up and off when i go to bed. My computer saves me time and money and makes my life so much happier.

As i conducted the data, I realized how much i actually did surf the web in one day, and how many advertisements i saw. The internet, which is the virtual playground of where i spend most of my time, is a swamp of never ending advertisements and hidden links. Every other thing that you click is hypertext disguised as something else so the site will get a hit. I had never really realized but the media today has endless possibilities for advancement because of the internet. Right now currently the biggest thing going on is the 27th Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, which is being solely covered by NBC and their affiliates. Since the Olympic Games began, the regular NBC site has tripled their Web hits and their official Olympic site has almost maxed out on the systems resources from all te people logging on and trying to find out ?Up to the minute results.? I myself even have spent hours on the site finding out track and field times and Gymnastics scores. The other thing i found myself doing for hours on end is the most widely done thing on college campuses today (or at least it seems). I chatted, A lot. I talked to my boyfriend every day at least three times a day and i would talk to others that i know that go to different schools. This is one of the best things to ever happen to a college student because the programs are free and it cuts down on phone bills.