Within the past
few years, my media consumption habits have changed drastically. Five years ago, I did not use Facebook or any
type of social media. I just had
received my first cell phone, which was a small flip phone that only made
calls, so I did not text. I did have a
small iPod with minimal amount of space.
My only constant interaction with media was watching a few hours a
television a day with my sister and using my computer to research and complete
homework assignments. When I become an
online college student, my parents bought me a laptop, which made it very
convenient to access various types of media.
I joined
Facebook, learned how to view shows on
Hulu, and read the
online news websites. The websites made
it convenient to keep up with friends, watch movies and television shows, as
well as a myriad of other tasks that I had become “too busy” to do on a regular
basis. In examining my current media
consumption habits, I have found it is the
convenience
I desire which drives my media consumption habits. Since my very first flip phone, which had
almost no features, I have upgraded to an Android smart phone. It offers convenience in virtually every way
possible. I can contact others, check my
bank statements, take pictures and upload them to the Internet, share YouTube
videos with friends, and even write a discussion post for school. Cell phones allow media consumption to become
mobile. Philip Napoli notes, “The
decision to consume a particular piece of media content often beings with the
audience member becoming aware of that content’s availability in advance”
(2010, p. 89). The Nielsen ratings
company conducted research on smart phone usage and found that application use
is steadily increasing from year to year.
Specifically, smart phone users increased by more than 50% within the
last year (Nielson Wire, 2012). The
average number of apps that are downloaded to each device went from 32 to 41 in
between 2011 and 2012 (Nielson Wire, 2012).
The smart phone “apps” (applications) make up our media consumption
habits. Slowly, they replace actual
tasks, like banking, reading print books, and turning on a radio. Our phones allow us to complete these tasks
simultaneously and with supreme convenience.
