My Media Diet: Inhalation...
It has come to my attention that I am literally inhaling media. I know I work in PR, and am a "Generation X"er and all that Jazz. But doing this little log over the past 24 hours is quite startling when you look at it all laid out like this. The little subconscious checks of twitter, the musing of blog posts yet to be written, it wouldn't suprise me if I start unwillingly speaking in 140 character sentences!
So much of this media has just become 2nd nature, a part of the stream of our consiousness, and so little of it we actually question. Monday Morning. Office. Sit Down. Boot Up. Log On. Tweet. Eat. Tweet Again. Blog. Read. Digest (Digitally & Physically). Google. Email. Tweet Yet Again. Tag It. Digg It. Cast it. Download. Power Down. Go Home.
You get the picture...
So back to where we started - I decided to conduct little survey of my media diet. Consumption. Call it what you will. Let me take you back via the medium of blog (and some wavy scoobie doo effects) to Monday morning...
6:50 AM - *Beep Beep Beep... THWACK!* Alarm clock knocked lazy from bedside table, rolling over, pushing girlfriend aside reaching for iPhone. Missing iPhone. Rolling back over. Snooze Button. 20 Minutes of Chris Moyles drowning out my dreams and bringing me (not so gently) into the new working week.
7:00 AM - I take a second attempt at reaching for iPhone. More successful this time. Read/Delete Spam.
7:50 AM - On tube now, dive head long into the wonderous hub of investigative journalism that is The Metro... lose interest around page 13...
7:59 AM - Once again distracted by Twitter on iPhone... *silent wish that people would not keep writing "Good morning everyone!" tweets... the old adage rings true, if you haven't got something nice to say...
8:00 AM - 8:35 AM ... Listen to Podcast.
Monday: Friday Night Comedy - Radio 4 (Listen)
Tuesday: Relevant Magazine (Listen)
Wednesday: This American Life (Listen)
Thursday: NPR - Poetry Magazine (Listen)
Friday: Genius Playlist on iPhone... (Info Here)
8:37AM - 9:02Am - As i'm plunged into the darkness of the Jubilee line* (See More...) and am severed from my 3G connection to the world I revert to a analogue approach in the form of Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller's fantastic mini essay series on non religious spirituality... (He blogs here). Until I succomb to the inevitable release of a Amazon Kindle 2 UK Version, paper reigns supreme for sub-terrainian entertainment.
9:10AM - 9:45AM - Arrive at work, bum on seat, Latte in hand, croissant in front of keyboard and all is well. Boot up, Log In, wait for work Email server to get it's act together, then begin to breathe in 1's and 0's in the form of Twitter, Facebook, Hotmail, Google Reader, Delicious Tags, Radian6 (our social media monitoring tool here at Ogilvy) and news source of choice (for usability not politics) Guardian Online...
11:00 AM 11AM jumps out from behind a bush at me, startling me somewhat about it's urgency in getting through the day. It's about this time (usually musing over a latte) that the latest round robin email from the London Ogilvy Interactive group catches my attention - usually in the form of a YouTube distraction or some other digital delight. Sip. Click. Sit. Click. Back to work. Wait. This is work.
11:10 AM Check back into the twittersphere... Not much happening. Does FollowFriday do anyone else's nut in or is it just me! (As an aside it is important to bring to light the troublesome issue that the MacBook - wonderful that it is - doesn't feature a hash key on the keyboard! Grrrr...)
12:50 PM As hunger strikes (cue the Shreddies soundtrack) heading for lunch deleteding more (and more) spam from personal email on iPhone - ooo. My next LoveFilm is on it's way... Michael Macintyre!
13:45 PM - Stomach full, email inbox equally bloated. Quick twitter update before some serious digital digestion takes place, predominantly in the form of some Radian6 fishing and the odd blog inspiration from Google Reader.
2:00-5:45PM -As the sound of the neuvo-classical Flight of The Concordes hit thuds in my head, this point in the afternoon is officially "business time" - (for those of you unaquainted a little help from YouTube can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGOohBytKTU) The result of which means, that aside from the spiradic twittering and lingering tap of the iPhone, very little goes on here other that - as would be expected - work.
6:00 - 7:00PM - Pretty much a repeat of 7:45 AM - 9:15AM but in reverse order. After a fairly media heavy day I tend to tail off by the time I get home. Suprisingly I still remember how to speak to people face to face! (Those who know me well will know this has never truely been a problem however...)
So there we have it, that pretty much wraps up the day. And sadly (possibly not the case for you routine junkies out there) - most days it's the same story. Living a truely digitally native life, as one of the first generations to have never known what it is to not have a PC in the house is quite a priveledge I suppose. However this does provoke an almost subconscious dialogue within me, that is constantly thinking of the angle, the wall post, the tweet, a constant desire to replicate my offline life digitally. So how do you describe that? Inhalation. Breathe In.
(*Ironic titled as I think any old Testament Jew would adamently argue that there is in no way anything about the Jubilee line that embodies the spirit of Jubilee... I digress - further thoughts on commuting by underground in my poem 7.5 Minutes of Dark - Here)