Walked into the classroom, classmates were having a lively discussion about the affairs happened to the movie star last night, however, I had no idea about that. The only thing I can do was sitting on the seat and looking at my textbook. The first morning deprived from mass media made me feel social isolation at that moment. It is no exaggeration to say that, I was aware of I have lost common language with my classmates and friends.
What is worse, in the evening I used to watching TV or reading books while browsing the social applications, in the case of no mass media, I can only read my favorite novels intently. What surprised me was that I realized that reading without browsing social applications turned too boring. This reminds me probably 3-4 years ago, I always reading novels intently and the content was quite attractive, whereas the novels was far from to attract me. That was the time that I realized how I need the magazine, radio, TV and other digital media.
The best option was to go to sleep. Worst of all, I finally figured out that I even could not fall asleep without receiving messages from my net friends from Facebook. Therefore, I got time to call my parents, grandparents and friends, asked what were they doing, some of them told me that they were browsing information on the mass media. Life is full of mass media.
Though enough mental preparation has been taken before the life started without mass media, life still appears a wide variety of problems. I learned that I cannot live without the mass media even for one day, especially, my Smartphone.
2.2 Interpersonal Relationships
The next day, all things were repeated and I felt even worse than yesterday. I had the feeling that my friends were keep talking but not ask my opinion anymore. I even felt a little nervous and worried about whether I have missed the wonderful and interesting events on the internet. I wondered what might happened to my favorite movie stars, where was his next station to promote the new film. In addition, few weeks ago I got the news that my favorite singer would have his world tour and the next station was in my city, did I missed the news in the day I was out of mass media? These made feel unbearable.
Inevitably, I checked my Smartphone. The good news was that the schedule of the tour in my city delayed and the bad news was that there was no any new message from any of my friends after my one day absence from the internet. Deeply frustrated and disappointed is full of my heart, did not my friends know I haven't been online for a day? This made me feel as if there was a huge gap between the information age and I. all these bad feeling came to me when I just kept away from the mass media a single day. Meanwhile, other things turned better. Compared to the lack of concentration during class yesterday, I could concentrate longer not to press the home button to check whether there was a message. In the evening, unexpectedly, I found myself could reading intently, the same thing happened probably three years ago. With no anxiety and vapidity, I watched 3 chapters the second day.
As days went by, anxiety and isolation alleviated. Emphasize has been paid on study like reading books, talked with my parents on phone as well as do anything I like but the time was occupied by the mass media before. I had time to get together with my friends who lived far away from me instead of interact with them only on the social network. Having a get together is a thousand times better than interact online. Besides, I can pay more attention to the real life. Books, texts, phones and exercises made the life more real, they made the world as real as when there was not full of mass media.
The real date with friends enhances the relationship tightness between us. In addition, it also gave us plenty of topics. Besides, we talked about books, sports and the concert we went together. All these things made me recall the old happy time we spent together years ago.
In recent years, I realized that it was difficult to communicate with my parents. I thought they had stereotype and unable to keep up with the modern life. I spent 3-4 hours a day on Facebook, however, my mother did not know how to operate the application. Hence, I often call her a time every two weeks and spend perhaps 5 minutes with her talking about my study and the cost of living. Living without mass media made me reflect on my attitude towards my parents. They often call me and care about my daily life, on the contrary, I always elaborate them a few words then hang up the phone. I felt deeply guilt and self-accusation. How I used to neglect my parents because of indulge myself in the Smartphone and social network. The experience of five-day without mass media made realize that, actually, internet, TV and social network were not such significant as I imaged.
3. Impact of Mass Media on Me |
