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Eden Olsen

Dr. Rohlinger

SYO 3460

06/07/2017

Part 3: Analysis

Introduction

At this point in time and history media is essential for gathering information and a way of

understanding the world through a variety of tools and platforms. Media usage oftentimes

consumes our lives as we use it for school, leisure, and business. From analyzing four of my

classmates along with comparing them and each other to myself I have found that I overall use

media significantly less than my peers, however this is due to many different factors. In fact, I

have found that all but one student uses telephone the most out of all forms of media, with

television and computer coming in second place consistently. While media use is more prevalent

in handheld devices such as telephones this day and age, my media usage was surprisingly

significantly less than that of my classmates.

Analysis of My Media Use

The overall amount of media use for me is lower than the rest of my classmates. The total

number overall of all media used over the five-day period is 1,934 minutes. The totals for four of

my classmates are as follows: Nicole Schultz (5,475 minutes total), Christie Noonan (4,020

minutes total), Kellie Reeves (3,275 minutes total), and Federico Benavides (3,384 minutes

total). To start, my classmates clearly used media three to five times more than I did over the five

day period. This could be due to several factors. For most of the summer and during that five-day
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period I was working eight-hour shifts at my job almost every day except for two of those five

days. This would mean I would have no access to media for large portions of my days due to

being at work and in an environment where I cannot use my phone (only for emergencies) and

there are no televisions or any other sort of media around for me to access. This definitely

reflects the average usage I have during the summer when I work more as well as the fall when I

am busy. This five-day analysis would have looked much different on a vacation week with my

numbers leaning more towards the average of my peers. Likewise, I would normally use my

computer much more during a regular school year. Since I am only in two online classes for the

summer and doing undergraduate research my usage of the computer is also lower than it would

normally be during the regular school year where I might be taking five classes at once rather

than two. Additionally, I work at the campus radio station V89.7 as a radio DJ/announcer.

During my weekly shift on Tuesday night going into Wednesday morning from 2am-6am I am

constantly listening to music specifically radio music as I back announce and do my normal

rotation that I am assigned to This causes my numbers for radio use to increase drastically

compared to others. Most of my media usage comes from my phone and the radio. I typically do

not have much time for television. Sometimes at night when I have the time I watch the news

during the evening and the NatGeo channel. Other than that, everything else listed in the chart

below for my total minutes over the five-day period seems insignificant to me. In the Other

category I played my Nintendo DS2 twice during that period for a relatively short amount of

time. I am not sure how wide of an impact something like that can make compared to my radio

and phone usage. This project let me see how little I use compared to others during my busier

time of year. I still use enough media for it to shape my day-to-day life. 1,934 minutes is a chunk

of time I use out of my life during almost each five-day period (if not more during other times of
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the year). 1,934 minutes equivocates to about 32.23 hours total, which is over an entire day of

media usage over five days. Keeping in mind that sometimes these numbers were rough

estimates due to being at work and away from a source to record my minutes, my time may be a

little under the amount that I did get to record. Observing my media use helps my not only

monitor how much I use on a daily basis, but also where I get information from and how much

time is dedicated to each source.

Figure 1.1

Total Minutes (all 5 days)

Computer (Online) - 365 minutes
Computer (Offline) - 18 minutes
TV - 216 minutes
Tablet - 0 minutes
Newspapers/Magazines - 0 minutes
Radio - 297 minutes
Stereo/CD - 95 minutes
Books - 32 minutes
Telephone - 861 minutes
Other - 50 minutes
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Figure 1.2

Media Usage over 5 Days (in minutes)

350
Minutes (over 5 days)

300
250
200
150
100
50
0

Specific Type of Media

Comparison to My Classmates

During this five-day period I noticed that I did not use as much media as I thought I

would have. This was possibly due to the amount of time I had to spend at work during the week

as well as being busy in general. Most of my personal time was spent on my phone, computer

(online), as well as the radio. My peers results were quite different from mine, but also showed

similarities between a few results. After taking daily averages over the five-day period I

established the chart below. My computer (online) use was the median average amongst the five

of us. This might make sense because my computer use was usually geared towards school work

or writing papers and whatnot. My peers are obviously taking classes and are probably on their

computers either just as much as I or maybe a little more. I noticed that Nicole and Christie both

did not use their computer offline at all. I am surprised that Federico used his computer offline at

an average of 81 minutes per day. These types of things say a lot about what a person is

interested in as well as their major. An accounting major may spend more time offline on their

computer than me (a sociology/EWM major) because he/she might only need to crunch numbers
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offline compared to another major who may have to do a lot of online research. Or perhaps

Federico is into offline computer games and did not mention it in his more detailed chart. I know

that I use my computer offline if I am just working on recording research I have found

previously. As stated before, television is not something I had time for during those five days and

was not a priority. I have the lowest daily average for television at 43.2 minutes out of the five of

us with Federico coming in close at a daily average of 48 minutes per day. With that being said,

Christie had almost 9 times as much T.V. time as I did. This caused me to infer that maybe

Christie has a lot more free time or does not hold a job at this point in time unlike me. She did

not specify in her charts whether she was watching Netflix or cable so I am not sure what she

was watching but she spent the most time watching whatever it was. The tablet category was one

that I was not expecting to see any numbers in, because I do not have one and nor do I know

anyone who uses one a lot. However, Kellie came out with a daily average of 8 minutes per day.

Kellie is an outlier in this category and perhaps she is the only one who even owns or has access

to a tablet. I had similar expectations for the results of newspapers and magazines due to the fact

that they are considered more outdated to this generation in a way. There is more access to online

publications from newspapers and magazines that can be read over ones phone or computer. I

was surprised to see that two out of the five of us (Federico and Kellie) recorded reading

newspapers/magazines. In regards to old media, radio results between my peers and I surprised

me. I listen to the radio every day and I thought more consistently than the average person

because I work at a radio station and listen to it when I am not working in the booth. But once

again my peers surprised me! While I had the median average I was surprised that I did not have

the highest daily average because of my radio internship. Perhaps Federico had taken a trip and

listened to the radio constantly or maybe he listens to it in the background while doing daily
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activities. Stereo/CD results were significantly lower. While I would listen to my stereo at home

and in the car when I played music in the car off of my phone, perhaps others would rather listen

to the radio. In fact, Christie and Federico did not record listening to any stereo/CD in the five

days and clearly prefer listening to the radio instead. This is interesting because radio is

considered older media compared to stereo/cd. Following this, books are still a common form of

old media that are still used heavily whether they are e-books or hard copy. My peers most likely

read books for classes as well as for leisure, especially during the summer with more free time

for most students. While I have not personally had as much time to read books this summer so

far for leisure it looks like others may have. All of the students reported reading books during the

five-day period with Kellie having the highest daily average at 85 minutes per day which is 425

minutes overall. Compared to me, her daily average is 10 times higher than mine. However, I

laid by the pool at my apartment complex to read for about 30 minutes one day which makes my

daily average inaccurate compared to her average. With all this in mind the telephone daily

averages were the highest averages overall. I was not shocked when I saw that my daily average

was the lowest weighing in at 172.2 minutes. I simply did not have the time or interest to be on

my phone during work which I was working 3 or 4 times that week for 8 hours each shift. Kellie

and I have similar phone times. It seems Kellie was more invested in the computer and books

more than the others. I was extremely surprised with the amount Nicole used her phone. 720

minutes of average daily use is very high and her amount stood out like a sore thumb. 720

minutes is the equivalent to 12 hours. She probably always has her phone on her and most likely

uses it for a variety of things during her daily activity (paying for items, shopping, game apps,

texting, social media, etc.). I suppose this might include texting, talking, as well as using social

media (it is not outlined clearly in another chart). That incredible number of nearly 60 hours per
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week is more than a full time job! My other two peers Christie and Federico lie more on the

average end of the spectrum compared to everyone else. While I use my phone less due to time

that I do not have while I am at work or busy, these students (Christie and Federico) use their

phones a little more than I do which leads me to believe that this is what a typical daily average

would look like for the typical person our age. While no one recorded anything in the Other

category I did. I recorded the time I spent on my Nintendo DS2. I spent 50 minutes total for an

average of 10 minutes per day on my DS. I was a little surprised because I thought at least one

other individual would have recorded a video game of some sort, but I was the only one.

Figure 1.3

Average Daily Media Usage of My Peers and I (in minutes)

My Student 1 Student 2 Student 3 Student 4 (Federico

Type of Media Media (Nicole Schultz) (Christie Noonan) (Kellie Reeves) Benavides)
Computer
(Online) 73 53 146 98 42
Computer
(Offline) 3.6 0 0 54 81
TV 43.2 252 359 144 48
Tablet 0 0 0 8 0
Newspapers/
Magazines 0 0 0 13 12
Radio 59.4 24 15 64 77
Stereo/CD 19 28 0 14 0
Books 6.4 18 48 85 52.8
Telephone 172.2 720 236 175 364
Other 10 0 0 0 0

Overall, in some aspects my media use is similar to the other students. I was surprised at how

similar my radio usage was to the other students as well as the amount that a couple of the

students read newspapers/magazines. However, the sections where I am more of an outlier are in
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the other category, telephone, books, and TV most certainly due to lack of spare time that I had

during the five-day period.

Taking a look at traditional media use compared to my peers, while I do have a higher

rate of radio usage that is closer to everyone elses average, I still lack completely in traditional

media usage. It is time consuming to sit down and read books when I work such tedious and long

work shifts. I would have better access to traditional-types of media through my phone. I feel the

same way about TV. My peers who probably have more spare time probably had the overall

higher rates of traditional media use as well as overall media use. Christie has the highest rate of

traditional media usage topping everyone else with a whopping 2,110 minutes over the five-day

period. However, most of Christies total consists of TV unlike Kellie who has more of a variety

of traditional media usage. While most people would argue that things like books and

newspapers and radio are going out of style in reference to media, these students show that this

might not be the case. While the usage is lower for newspapers/magazines, it still shocked me a

bit that students had results for that category. With access to online sources I would have thought

my peers all would have had zeros. For me, I hope to compare more to Kellie in the future as her

traditional media use appears more balanced than mine. While my only similarity between all of

my peers stands with the radio category in traditional, the others seem harder to access with a

busy lifestyle of working and school.

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Figure 1.4

Total Traditional Media Usage Over 5 days

Student 4 (Federico Benavides) 949
minutes total
Student 3 (Kellie Reeves) 1,530
minutes total
Student 2 (Christie Noonan) 2,110 TV
minutes total Newspapers/Magazines
Student 1 (Nicole Schultz) 1,470 Radio
minutes total
Books
Me - 545 minutes total

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500

Total Minutes (over 5 days)

Discussion and Conclusion

In conclusion, I found that I do not measure up to my peers when it comes to overall

media usage. Due to the lack of time I am able to allocate to focus on media my numbers are

significantly lower in some categories, especially in TV and phone usage. I am surprised with the

amount of traditional media my peers like newspapers/magazines and was happy that my peers

read more than I do. This project not only helped me gain an understanding of where I lack and

stand in regards to overall media use, but it has also inspired me to try to aim for a balance. I

would ideally like to make my minutes reading books per week higher as well as

newspapers/magazines to stay current. I was especially surprised and elated to see the high rates

my peers had in the radio category. While a lot of people believe radio is a dying source of

information and music these results from these four students proved that assumption and I are

wrong. There are many factors that could influence ones media usage and I think that could be
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an interesting angle to look at in the future. Due to the fact that my lifestyle is busy between

working almost full-time on top of classes for the summer there is limited time for leisure media

usage. Today we have more visually stimulating media sources like social media over our

phones riddled with advertisements and video feed. Overall, it seems as though my peers were

more focused on visually stimulating sources of media like social media and TV (i.e. Netflix,

Amazon, Hulu, etc.) rather than books and newspapers/magazines. However, the high number of

radio listeners was the biggest surprise to me while looking back on this assignment. In the

future as I reflect upon how we get our information and spend our time, I will take away the fact

that as a society we have kept traditional media for the most part and have condensed it into

forms of new media. The media and its parts will most likely continue to evolve as we evolve.