Mia's Media Diary

I’ve always thought that I should watch less TV and spend less time on the computer. According to my media diary I’m absolutely right. I estimated that I’d watch TV and sit in front of the computer maybe 12 hours a week but the diary shows that the real consumption is 20 hours or more. What comes to listening to the radio, reading news papers, watching films and seeing ads on the street I managed to estimate the time I use them quite well. I listen to music and the radio for about 10 hours weekly, I read news papers approximately 3 hours weekly and I watch films 7 hours a week. I see ads on the street every day almost every second so it’s really hard to say an exact amount of days, hours or minutes I see them.

I guess it’s no surprise that I often become interested of things in the media that concern me. For example if I see there’s an article about how much young people use drugs I find it more interesting that an article about if Matti Vanhanen has a secret affair. Things that interest me are e.g. sports, young people and what they think and peoples opinions in general, food, music and culture, so those are the things I like to find out about. I also think it’s interesting to read an article or watch a TV document about family problems and crimes that happen or have happened around the world. I like them because they make me realize how lucky I am to have my family, live in quite a safe environment and have a chance to a good education.

I like to watch TV with my family or friends, especially series and movies, because we can laugh together and discuss about something that has been brought up in a document for example. If I listen to music it really doesn’t matter if I’m alone or not. The only difference is that if I’m alone I can sing as loud as I want and no one complains (). Reading news papers and magazines is something I like to do alone because it’s disturbing to have someone wanting to turn the page when I’m not done and vice versa. However I like to ask my mom or dad about something if I don’t understand it and it usually grows to a conversation about the issue I’ve asked about.

Most of the time I’m in touch with the media is for my own entertainment. I watch the news and read e.g. Helsingin Sanomat because I like to know what’s going on in the world and in Finland. Most of the time when I’m on the Internet I do it by my self because there might be something private I don’t want anyone to see like an e-mail. If I’m on the Internet with my friend it’s usually because we look at someone’s pictures on Facebook or something like that.