My Relationship with Media

My relationship with media is complicated, burdensome, and inescapable.  My life has been influenced and changed since it started, and has that influence has been growing exponentially since. While I used to just be affected but small amounts of news media and advertisements on tv, I am now exposed to a wide variety of social media, news media, and the internet. My dependence on books and personal experiences to shape my worldview has decreased, and I now rely on information relayed to me through my phone, via Instagram, Snapchat, news alerts, podcasts, YouTube, advertisements, and so on. There are benefits to media. Social media allows connections to be made across the globe and country and allows for artistic and personal expression. However, these connections can often be superficial or sketchy, and we express ourselves for likes or the views of others, and it is not true self-expression. It becomes the image we fabricate that is rated and added to by random strangers. Pixelated images and electronic should not define our self-worth, and I realize this, yet sometimes I catch myself falling into that ideology. Even if I reject the ideas and thoughts behind that culture and realize the manipulation and self-degrading aspects, I participate in it and am affected. Media has allowed us to live our lives separated from reality while making us believe that we are only more connected to it. I don't know how my relationship with media will end, or if it ever will. However, I know that it is something I must be wary of.