Saturated by Media: Tales from the Digital Age

I’ve recently been thinking about how media has changed in the last few years. In today’s  information age, media permeates our lives in so many ways. With high-speed internet so common and mobile computing growing exponentially, there are ample opportunities to be exposed to all forms of media.

In order to investigate this a little further, I decided to take an inventory of my media exposure.  I’m basically an information junkie, so I wanted to get a feel for what I am really exposed to.

Blogs:
Using Google Reader (which makes it incredibly easy to be exposed to a lot of information through the power of RSS feeds) I subscribe to the following:

– Aisle of Confusion – Healthy/Natural Food
– Daniel Pink – Author/Career
– Get Rich Slowly – Personal Finance
– GigaOM – Technology
– GOOD – Current Events
– Green Growth Cascadia – Sustainable Engineering (I occasionaly post here)
– Lawyer Musings – Personal Blog
– mnmlist – Life Simplicity
– Nine to Thrive – Career/Jobs
– Npowering – Non-Profit Technology
– Shareable – Life Simplicity
– Geoff Baker’s Mariners Blog – Sports
– Zen Habits – Life Simplicity
– Adventures with Adelaide – Personal Blog
– Breaking 80! – Personal Golf Blog

Each of the above blogs have different schedules.  Some post only once a week, other post multiple times a day. Overall, I probably get somewhere around 50 new posts a day, 10 of which I bookmark for reading later and 5 of which I actually read.

I really like the efficiency and customizable nature of RSS feeds.  Its like getting your own unique news channel which you can customize and change-up on a regular basis.

Magazines:
I subscribe to 4 magazines currently:

– The Week (weekly)
– Business Week (weekly)
– Consumer Reports Money Advisor (monthly)
– GOOD (quarterly)

I get my main source of national news from The Week and Business Week.  I used to get stressed about not having time to read all of the articles, but now I don’t worry about it too much.

Television:
This is one area that I feel I do pretty good at.  My wife and I don’t watch a lot of TV, but we still do watch some.  On average we probably watch 6-8 hours a week, of which some of that is the local and national news.   We have the cheap cable package which basically just gives us local channels.   I’m totally fine with that.  We only pay $15/month and there is more than enough media on 15 channels to take time away from other, more important things.

Social Media:
Thankfully, I don’t subscribe to any social media sites (yet!).  There is no Twitter, Facebook, or Google Buzz in my life. If there was, I would probably get nothing done.  So many people have asked me to get on Facebook but I refused everytime knowing that the last thing I need is to have instant “news” about dozens of “friends” at anytime of the day.
[Update 4/25/10 – as of a few days ago, I’m now on Twitter.  My twitter handle is @towoody1]

I do see the value in these sites, and I’m sure I will join one if not both eventually.  But now I am more than satisfied being a non-adopter of these technologies.  When I do join, I’m going to be very careful with how I use them also.

Other Media:
There are several other forms of media out there including your email (work/personal), radio, instant messaging, junk mail, and we might as well throw in text messaging and cell phones also.  Some of these may not meet the strict definition of media, but they do require your time and attention.

In Summary:
Just doing the “media inventory” for this post made me realize how pervasive information is in our lives and how many opportunities we have to access it.   I know from personal experience that if you are not careful the amount of media we’re exposed to can put you in an “information overload” state.

Like anything in life I feel that the amount of and ease of access to information is both a blessing and a curse.  If you are not careful it can start to overwhelm you and take time away from other life goals and commitments.

Some of the ways I manage information is to be very choosy about what I subscribe to and purchase (hence the reason for no expanded cable or Facebook).  I also try to not be an early adopter on the latest and greatest mobile hardware (no iPad for me) and make sure that the media fits with my goals and objectives.

It would be great to hear others experience on this topic and what other people’s “media inventory” looks like.

-TW