Media consumption essay

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At first, I was very reluctant to keep a log of my consumption of Media through a 24 hours period. Why? Because I at the end I will be faced with the reality that I spend the majority of my time not reading anymore but watching TV.
Growing up in Burkina face, an underdeveloped country located in West Africa, news just flowed from ear to ear and the only media I was exposed to, TV, had only one channel that was broadcasted from 12 pm till 10pm. And even that, my parents did allow to watch until I turned 13 years old. Then I only watched an average of five hours of TV. I spend my time doing other things like playing soccer with my friends, doing my school work and reading with my mother. But I always wander what life woulb be like if I had 24 hours TV, with multiple channels and all to myself. It didn't take me long to found out.
When my moved to Boston seven years ago I didn't speak a word of English but I happy about having a TV with over 200 channels. I right away spend hours watching TV and I ven believe that it help me learn english faster. But even if I didn't want to admitted it, watching TV is the only thing that makes me happy and I became depressed with nothing left to do everything my cable is shut off. By writing a log about my time spend on media I found very disturbing information that I didn't include in my log. Every week I spend about 22 hours watching TV, 20 hours online chatting and listening to music. If I ever turn 70 I will have spend about 7 years of my life watching TV and chatting online. I was so frighten by the results of my log that I called my cable company to shut off my cable. As of today 10/7/05 I spend about 11 hours of my time watching TV and 13 hours online doing mostly school work. Media play a big role in Americans lives and I live in America. It is impossible not be influence by media but it is possible to limit the bad affects and take advantage of the goods.