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Magical Life:

Reflecting back on the first two assignments in this course, the Media Use Self- Assessment assignment evaluated my knowledge and expertise on the media I use and whom I use them with. This was the first time I had been asked a question of this nature and found myself struggling to explain how I use media technologies. The second time around, I was asked to keep track of how I use media daily for five straight days and evaluate myself on my findings. I found that I use my laptop and IPhone for many different things and often put myself into a frenzy of multitasking without realizing it. The Infomagical Challenge Blog assignment helped me most in the self-control of my desires and realizing what is important in my life and concentrate on it. We live in frenzy of information, everything from useful to useless information which is time consuming, these includes memes, celebrity websites, and arguably most of what is trending on popular social media platforms’ like Facebook and Twitter. Media technologies like smartphones and laptops have revolutionized the way we communicate as well as created new and different meaning to our lives both online and offline. I can argue that without the progression of media technologies, people would not be as cultured or socially tolerant of people of other races and ethnic backgrounds. As for myself I learned that I depend on media technologies way to often for school work and as a means of staying in touch with family and friends. My entire day revolves and is coordinated according to my cellphone, I check the time, the weather, the news, as well as set appointments all on my phone. My plans for the future is to learn how to use media technologies responsibly and since im studying communication, I should make it my obligation to teach the people around me ways and tricks they can use media technologies in a strategic way.

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Magical Connection:

This challenge i did not find difficult, because I enjoy conversing on the phone with family and friends. I have this one friend where I talk on the phone with every day, we enjoy talking about politics, Basketball, our jobs and many more things. I believe in moderation and enjoy the traditional way of talking to people face to face and enjoy talking on the phone because unlike texting you can always tell how the conversation is going. Although I still see find joy in text messaging because it enables me to communicate at a fast rate as well as allows for multitasking. The benefits of social media is that it allows the person to talk anonymously as well as be able to share pictures, sounds, and express emotional feelings without the direct judgment from the other person. I decided to call my grandmother whom I rarely call just because she makes me feel bad about myself for rarely calling or visiting her. I understand that it should not be a chore to visit a loved one but a privilege, so I made my mind to go and visit her. I sat with my grandmother and talked to her about Donald Trump and everything he advocated in as well as explained to her the racial divide that is problematic in the United-States. My Grandmother is becoming feeble with old age and I believe people of her age appreciate us talking to them mother than them talking to us. I sat there talking to her about what is happening in my life and my goals for the future. She gave me helpful advice in between and cautioned me from drinking and smoking. This challenge helped me realize how important talking face to face with someone, it helps with expanding ones vocabulary as well as help maintain our social hierarchy.

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Magical Brain:

The Magical Brain challenge is by far the most useful as well as the most difficult from the three. Viral and Trending things are easily consumed and enjoyed by millions on the accounts of their funny and light nature. Although most of what is trending on Youtube and Twitter is not deemed important in the context of important world problems such as war, it is mostly random hashtags about movies or celebrities. I find myself at times just swiping down for hours looking at photos and short clip videos for leisure purposes which results in significant time loss from things in my life that are more important like completing a school assignment. The useless browsing on my smartphone often leads me stressed and procrastinating trying to get important tasks done such as university work. It is Wednesday the 12, 2016 and tomorrow I have my most difficult class of this semester, I decided to take advantage of this challenge and focus on the assigned’ readings since he assigns long articles that are usually intense. There had been four articles assigned for tomorrow’s class in which I managed to finish one before realizing I should go on my phone and check my Instagram. I managed to control my desires and not allow myself to give in and multitask by focusing on this challenge. Half way through the third reading, I could not resist and picked up my phone but only to reply to a text message from my mother. I found it very challenging not being able to go on Facebook or Twitter to check what is trending, I somehow felt disconnected from the world and the thought of that is intimating. The end results of this challenge gave me new skills and enhanced my ability to take control of my desires and shift my focus on important things like the completion of my readings.

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Magical Phone:

This challenge is a statement that made me believe that a clean and simple phone can lead to a happier life and in some cases that is true. My phone and I have the same relationship as I do with my room or car. There are different kinds of phone users, some individuals like to fill their phone with games and pictures, others like to keep it simple and only include things that cater to their interests and things to help them with their daily activities. One aspect of media technologies like the smartphone is that it gives us access to different varieties of subjects and things to see. Smartphone users of Apple and Android have access to their respectful application (App) store to thousands of apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, exercise apps, games, educational apps, photo editing apps as well as video apps, and many more. As an individual who enjoys reading on my IPhone as well as enjoy news app I found that it was difficult to clean these areas of apps and bookmarks that I do not use on a regular basis. The thought in the back of my head was telling me that one day I might use them and I do not enjoy the task of deleting them and then  having to download them again. I shifted my focus from deleting apps I did not need to what apps i needed to keep, this strategy helped me clean my phone efficiently without any regrets of deleting. This challenge was useful in that it helped me free up space on my phone and like the previous challenge it allowed me to narrow my attention on things that matter.

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A Magical Day:

The first day of a five day challenge inspired by “Note to self”, the first challenge required no attention to multitasking and challenged one’s strength to focus on one thing without interruptions. Digital technology has transformed the way we behave with others and the world around us, people are now capable of doing ten things at once, that includes sending an email, talking with friends, studying online, talking on the phone, being on the laptop, watching a baby, and browsing the internet all at the same time. People have come to accept and enjoy the fact they can do so many things at once. As for myself I knew this challenge would be difficult in that I’m used to and love the ability to multitask with my media technology. I challenged my focus on cleaning my room, single tasking without any music or help from any person. Not having any music play or the freedom to take breaks to check my phone, often times watch a clip on Youtube or not having the freedom to send out a text message to a friend was challenging. I noticed I was becoming less motivated to clean my room that way and realized I was not cleaning my room the entire hour and just sitting on my bed trying to think about where to start. The lesson I learned from this exercise is that I’m incapable of letting go of my multitasking habits and realized I’m better off in my day multitasking to get jobs done.