Letter Assignment

December 1, 2014

Dear President Obama,

            I am writing this letter to petition a change in our country regarding an issue that is coming to the forefront of our society.  There has increasingly been a link between childhood obesity and media usage.  These negative effects have been researched and proven to exist in the long term.  I believe that the government should encourage parental restriction of media viewing and media usage in order to benefit the upcoming generation of America’s future leaders.

            The percentage of overweight children has tripled in recent years.  Ten percent of children between the ages of two and five are overweight, as well as fifteen percent of children and adolescents ages six to nineteen.  This is a clear and present danger in our society.  Obesity is linked with several chronic diseases, and is related to the number of television hours consumed.

            Longitudinal studies have reported that television time in childhood is strongly related to adult television time later in life.  Television has also predicted a higher body mass index more than thirty years later.  Television and other related media has been linked with diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and many more diseases.

            I am a current student at Brigham Young University and have studied the negative effects of media on obesity in my Family Life – Human Development major.  I have learned four mechanisms of the negative effects seen from television viewing and obesity.  The first is displacement of activity.  The more media that is viewed, the more sedentary in nature an individual is.  The second is unhealthy eating habits learned from food advertising on television.  Advertisements increase children’s choices and preference for products, and the main products advertised on television are pre-sugared breakfast cereals, soft drinks, candy, salty snack products, and fast food.  The third mechanism is increased calories from this snacking.  The fourth mechanism is poor sleep habits and an overall lack of sleep.

            As you can see, there are many negative effects that viewing television and consuming a lot of media can have on obesity and poor development.  Please take this information into consideration and take advantage of your influence on the country by educating the public on what they can do.  Encourage parents to take a stand and restrict media for their children, because they are our future and we do not want them to develop these poor habits early on that will last a lifetime.

Thank you,

Maddie Hunt

Home Decorating

We just moved to a cute little place about a week ago, and it's been so great for us!  But now I am wanting to do so many projects and crafts to make our new home cute and perfect.  This is why I love  Pinterest and Instagram - I have found so many ideas for DIY crafts, decorating ideas, and creative ways to make our house look fresh and new.  Media is so great in this way.  I don't have to come up with things like this on my own, but I can see others' ideas and combine those things with what's in my own head to decorate our new basement apartment.  I love it, it's so much fun!  Thanks, Pinterest and Insta :)

Snapchat

Tonight we went to a family dinner at my parents' house.  It was fun to see a few of my cousins and catch up with everyone!  When everyone was just arriving, a few of us started talking about Snapchat.  My sisters were trying to send the ugliest Snapchat possible to each other (from across the room, I might add) and they kept going back and forth.  Pretty soon, everyone was on their phones sending pictures of weird or ugly faces to each other.  I looked up and saw everyone holding their phones up to their faces making funny or ugly faces to a screen.  It made me laugh, because if somebody didn't know what Snapchat was or they didn't have a smartphone, they would be so lost and confused!  Media can bring us closer together, but then it can bring us farther apart because we can all be in the same room but not really interacting face to face!

Media Diary

For one of my Communications classes we had to keep a "media diary" where we logged every type of media we consumed or interacted with over a five day period.  I never realized how much media I use and how big of an influence it has on my life!  At almost any point in the day, no matter what I was doing, there was some type of media that I was consuming.  Here's a five second version of what I recorded in my media diary:

I woke up in the morning and checked my phone.  I had the tv on in the background while I was getting ready for the day.  I listened to the radio on my way to work.  I used my computer to do my job and complete tasks at work.  I went to class and watched my instructor teach using a powerpoint.  I went home and started homework, also on my computer.  I checked Facebook and Instagram on my phone.  I worked on a different homework assignment, this time reading a textbook.  I followed a recipe in a cookbook while making dinner.  I went to the gym with my headphones in.  My husband and I watched a movie before bed.  I checked Facebook and Instagram on my phone again, then used my phone to set my alarm for the next day.

Every part of my day involved media!  Honestly, I was kind of blown away at how much media usage I had recorded in a single day.  Constant media consumption is just a common part of our lives today, whether we realize it or not.  Yes, I probably use more media than the average person because I am a college student and work on the computer for my job.  But still, you just can't avoid media even if you try!

I highly recommend this exercise to anyone who is trying to use media less.  I know I've tried to be off my phone more, but when I actually started paying attention to how much I used all types of media it kind of scared me.  I'm glad that I'm more aware now of my daily media use.  I thought at the beginning of my assignment that keeping a media diary and writing a five page paper was going to be really hard, but I had so much to say that five pages wasn't enough!  Try it for yourself and you will probably be surprised at what you find. :)

Back to Basics

I have really been trying to make it a habit to go to the gym on a regular basis.  I started out just listening to music, but it doesn't entertain me or keep my mind off of exercise for very long.  So then I tried to watch tv shows while I did the elliptical, but it wasn't fast-paced enough to keep me motivated.  I tried reading, listening to conference talks, and other different types of media to keep me energized and motivated at the gym, but in the end I found that what keeps me most motivated is working out with my husband.  We don't have to have a full on conversation while running, but if we go to the gym together and walk the track or do the treadmill next to each other it keeps us going.  It made me think about all the types of media we are surrounded by, and in my case the solution to my gym boredom was not any type of electronics but my husband.  Sometimes I think we need to go back to the basics and not worry about all the devices and technology that we have.  It's given me a nice breath of fresh air. :)

Media and Self-Worth

I've been thinking a lot lately about how big of an influence media has on our confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth.  My Facebook feed is always filled with girls just begging for attention and reassurance that they are beautiful, talented, and have it all together.  They may not realize it, but post after post is negative and girls just obviously want others to compliment them and say good things.  There's nothing wrong with this I guess, but it seems like we are living in an age where everything is public.  Since this is the case, we see everything everybody does and that can take a toll on what we think of ourselves.  People have become so wrapped up in what others think of them, and their self-worth seems to be nonexistent!  It breaks my heart.  I'm not the type of girl to thrive off of what others think of me, and nobody should be like that!  We all care about what others think to some extent, but it shouldn't define us.  Media plays such a big role in this and I just wish it would play a positive role, making us more confident and raising our self-esteem!  But websites like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. make this nearly impossible.  Sometimes I have to log off of Pinterest because I find that I feel bad for myself because I don't have the perfect house, fancy meals prepared every night, a gorgeous wardrobe, or the ridiculously fit body that I see on my Pinterest feed.  I think we all just need to take a step back and remember that social media should not influence who we are by comparing ourselves to others.  I wish everyone would realize this!  You are all beautiful, and doing just fine!  You don't have to be Pinterest perfect or have the most Facebook friends to have self-worth.  We are all loved so much by our Heavenly Father and that should be what we care about most. :)

Double Tap

Okay I have an embarrassing moment that relates to media use.  This week I was in the waiting room at a doctor's office, and I picked up a magazine to look at.  While I was flipping through the pages, I found a picture that I thought was really cool.  Almost instinctively, I used my finger and "double tapped" the page.  For those of you who are familiar with Instagram, you know that when you are scrolling down your feed and you see a picture you like, all you have to do is "double tap" and a heart appears showing that you "liked" the picture.  I was so embarrassed that I had physically "double tapped" a magazine image to "like" it, when tapping it wouldn't do any good.  It really make me think that I must be on Instagram a little too much if I double tap things when I'm not even looking at a screen!  Sometimes media use takes over our lives without us even realizing it.  I'm definitely going to be putting my phone down a lot more this week :)

Behavioral Targeting

I'm taking an intro to Communications class this semester and we have been talking a lot about media.  It's been interesting to relate it to what we have been learning in Dr. Coyne's class.  Last week I posted about Facebook Ads that are targeted to us individually and how sometimes our privacy isn't as secure as we think it is!  Well in my communications class today we learned about a term called "Behavioral Targeting".  This is defined as "a technique used to increase the effectiveness of their campaigns by using information collected on an individual's web-browsing behavior to select which advertisements to display to that individual."  This is exactly what I was describing in my last post, but I didn't know the term for it.  Well, now I know that this is a real thing and is a real goal for advertisers in the media.  It's kind of unsettling that this is something so prevalent in our society today that it has an actual term and definition, and it's in textbooks!

Facebook Ads

I've recently been paying more attention to the ads I get on the sidebars of Facebook.  They seem like they are catered specifically to me - but how does Facebook know my interests and other things I view, not just on Facebook itself but on lots of other online sites?  I've had ads for specific shoes I've searched for on Nordstrom.com, different brands of makeup I've looked at on Sephora, and even office chairs I researched for my job.  I know it's all for the sake of advertising but it just seems wrong to me that somewhere somebody knows everything I'm looking at and doing!  This is one of those cases where media can go too far.  It's not like I have anything to hide, but I don't want websites taking information from me without my knowing.  It just makes me think that people are going to go further and further to find out things about us to cater advertising specifically to us.  When is this going too far?  Is it ever going to stop?  This is one part of media that I definitely do not care for!  I guess it can come in handy every so often, but I don't want to see ads for step-stools for the next six months just because I looked it up one time....

Product Reviews

One reason I love media is because I can benefit from things other people say and post.  I was recently looking to buy some new makeup and wanted to try something different, so I relied on product reviews from others to form my own opinion on what to buy.  I knew nothing about these products but was able to learn what other people thought because they posted their opinion, what they liked, what problems they had with the products, etc.  It made me think about how others can influence our opinions without us even knowing!  It also made me grateful for services like customer reviews because of how helpful they are!

Luckily I loved the products I ended up purchasing, so it turned out great.  But other times we still rely on reviews like these and it doesn't turn out the way we anticipated, but we still seem to read these reviews!  It can be a bad thing or a wonderful thing, but I am always that person to take the risk!

"You Never Know"

I love how the Church has been using media to spread the gospel.  I came across this video the other day and just loved the simple message it taught.  The video is called "You Never Know" - I couldn't figure out how to imbed it, but here is the link to the video:

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=3792885561001

I think media (especially social media) is becoming such a huge part of our culture and this is such a great opportunity for our Church to teach many members and nonmembers around the globe.  This Mormon Message in particular is a little reminder that you never know what kind of difference you can make in the lives of others.  If you end the day thinking you haven't accomplished anything, that is the wrong attitude to have.  There are little things we do that can affect others in such a positive way.  I think this is something we all need to remember in our daily lives.

Just like the Church has used media to spread the gospel, I think it is so important that we as members of the Church try to use social media for good and spread the gospel in any way we can.  If it is by bearing our testimony online, sharing a link to a Mormon Message, or being proud members of the Church, we never know what kind of influence we can make.  Social media is such a powerful tool and we have the opportunity to use it for good to spread the knowledge of the gospel, and we shouldn't take it for granted.

Violent Video Games

I was talking to my husband about our media class and the things we've discussed so far.  I brought up the subject of video games, and how there have been studies showing that violent video games and media can have a negative effect on development.  My husband immediately disagreed with me and said that he thinks violent video games have no effect whatsoever (at least for him).  He is really interested in anything to do with history so he really likes the video games that recreate wars and battles of the past, and there's lots of violence that comes with it.  I am not totally against video games, but growing up in my house my brothers were not allowed to play "rated M" games.  So naturally, I don't feel very comfortable with my husband playing these violent games.  He seems convinced that he is not affected, but then it made me think a little deeper.  Do violent video games and other forms of violent media affect us as much when we are older, after our brains have fully developed?  I've heard mixed answers from people about this, but I still think that violence affects us no matter our age.

Taking it too far?

I was on Instagram this week and got a notification that I had a new follower.  I didn't recognize the user's name so I clicked on the page to see who it was.  It took me a minute to figure it out, but it ended up being my friend's new puppy.  She had created an Instagram account for her dog!!  I was kind of surprised that somebody would do this, and it seemed a little over the top to me.  I've heard of people making Instagram accounts or Facebook pages for their young children before, and they post on their behalf, but animals?!  That's taking it to a whole new level!!!  It got me thinking about how people spend way too much time on social media.  I get that it's important to post about your daily life so that your friends and family can know what's going on, but is making a separate Instagram account for your dog a little too much?  Is that taking it too far?  I am not on social media a ton, I check maybe a few times a day and post one or two times a week.  This was so surprising to me that someone found the need to create a separate profile for an animal, a dog who can't even post for themselves and doesn't even know what Instagram is!

Nobody is Immune

Advertising and media are like peanut butter and jelly.  They just go together.  In our world today, you can't be exposed to media without coming across some sort of advertisement.  But do these advertisements really affect the way we think about the products and services that are being mentioned?

This thought came across my mind when I was in the car listening to a radio infomercial the other day.  The commercial was advertising some kind of laser body contouring service.  I was not interested in what was being advertised, and the "customer testimonials" seemed outrageous.  I just could not believe that some people fall for these kinds of things, because they seem expensive and too good to be true.

But the story doesn't end there.  A few minutes later, I found myself listening to another commercial advertising a product called "Ovation Cell Therapy".  And I have to admit, I actually use this product!  It is on the more expensive end, and the advertisements make it seem like bottled up magic, but something must have influenced me to try it.

I would not say that I am the type of person who goes out of the way to order these "As Seen on TV" or "online only" products that are not sold in stores.  I am generally pretty skeptical about these things, and have always thought that they are just expensive products that don't work.  But since I realized that I actually use one of these products, it really made me think about the influence of advertisements.  One commercial changed my thinking about a product, enough for me to purchase it and continue to use it.  I must admit that this was a subconscious process, because I didn't realize that I wanted to buy it because I heard it on a commercial.  Advertising works, and sometimes it can be scary!  Nobody is immune to these influences, even when we think we feel a certain way about something.