Media Use Diary

Observation and Analysis

Keeping track of all the different types of media I used during 14 days turned out to be a lot harder than I had anticipated. After all, through mobile phones, laptops, smart phones and other electronic devices, media is constantly available to us; we use and generate media ourselves every day.

First of all I am going to describe my method of recording my media use which will be followed with my main findings which are presented in table 1, showing my recorded data. Based on this table, I am going to talk about each of the categories; explaining why they are relevant in understanding my media use and further explaining the details of the media that were consumed/produced over the time span in question. Having looked at the individual categories in detail, I am going to identify particularities and interesting patterns. The analysis will involve thoughts about how the fact that I’m an exchange student temporarily living in a foreign environment might affect my media use and it will also contain a comparison to other class members’ habits.

For my media use diary, I broke down media use into 9 categories, with subcategories for 5 of them and recorded the daily amount I spent using (or, in the case of blogs, also producing) them. The data in the table below is shown in minutes, rounded to multiples of 5. The only exception is the use of my mobile phone and email, for which I have recorded the number of items sent/calls made.

Recorded data

Media Use Pie: Total of 3460 minutes recorded

Newspapers

Newspapers are the type of media I grew up with; they were the primary news source during most of my childhood. At home, we subscribe to various print newspapers, mainly the Tagesanzeiger (Zurich daily newspaper), the Sihltaler (Zurich suburban daily newspaper) and the Sonntagszeitung (sunday edition of the Tagesanzeiger).

Newspaper consumption (100% = 430 minutes)

As is evident from the chart, I still read a lot of newspapers, but, due to different factors, almost exclusively the online editions, with print editions only contribution 14% (60 minutes) to the total of 430 minutes spent reading newspapers. These 60 minutes were spent reading The Australian while on a train to a remote area where I had no internet access. The remaining 86% of newspaper reading time is equally divided between my daily visits to the online editions of the Brisbane Times, the Tagesanzeiger, the Financial Times and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).

The reason I am abandoning my preferred form of newspapers - print - and therefore contributing to its demise (which, for some serious and less serious reasons, is tragic, as this blog article from journalism.co.uk shows) will be discussed later on. Comparing the amounts of time reading print and online newspapers is difficult, though. I approach them in quite a different manner – if I read a paper’s online edition I see the headlines and only click on the articles or sections I am interested in, whereas when reading a print edition, I usually read every page and thus spend more time reading.

Television

The amount of time I spent watching TV is surprisingly small. Usually, television is one of my preferred sources of news and entertainment. Why my observations during the last two weeks might tell a different story will be discussed later on. 

TV consumption (100% = 440 minutes)

Unlike in the case of newspapers, if it comes to TV, „normal“ TV (86%) wins over online TV (14%). However, this outcome might differ had DVDs not been included in the conventional category.

The little bits of Australian television that I have seen so far are the 7pm Project, ABC News and a game of rugby. Patterns or preferences thus can not be identified. Online TV use is mostly comprised of streaming series (Mad Men) or online news and youtube videos.

Internet

My internet use is a repetitive routine that can be broken down into 4 main categories. These are Facebook, blogs, Twitter and general browsing (misc), adding up to a total of 1345 minutes spent on the internet. Excluded from this amount of time are newspapers, magazines and TV consumed online.

A considerable part of these 1345 minutes was spent on Facebook (48%), followed by blogs (40%), general browsing (approx. 6%)  and Twitter (approx. 6%). 

Internet use (100% = 1345)

I use Facebook mainly for sharing pictures from Australia with my friends and family at home. I also often use the Facebook chat, for example as a device to schedule Skype sessions with friends from Switzerland. I also use Facebook for sharing and linking my blog articles or pick up on what others are writing and reading. My use of Facebook is quite time-consuming. However, I often multi-task while being logged on to it. I do not own a smart-phone; it is very probable that such a device would even further increase the amount of time I spend on Facebook.

The time spent on blogs is divided into writing and reading others'. Currently, I am writing on 3 different blogs. The first one is of course this JOUR1111 blog and I am also an exchange student blogger for the UQ Abroad website. Furthermore, as I am an editor for my home uni’s students’ magazine (prisma) and can’t contribute for the print edition this semester since I’m on exchange, I am blogging for their blog (in German). I aim to post at least one major post per week on the first two blogs, for the third one I’ll write less frequently, but since they would usually be lenghty, well researched articles on difficult topics, it takes a lot longer to write them.

I am relatively new to Twitter and only use it for my JOUR1111 business. I do not spend a lot of time on there but do find it a useful tool that I might continue using.

Blogs I regularly read are prisma and Crikey, as well as some fashion blogs (eg. the Sartorialist, or this one). I usually check on them daily.

General browsing includes downloading documents for uni or researching for assignments.

Including Skype, the online consumption of newspapers, magazines and TV, my total internet use per day sum up to 2.69 hours.

Magazines

Magazines play a minor role in my media use.

Magazine consumption (100% = 250 minutes)

However, there are a few magazines whose online editions I check up on daily, most notably the Economist. During the two weeks of observation I have read some print magazines, namely an issue of Instyle and an old issue of prisma. The 130 minutes recorded for print magazines are divided solely on those two – if I pick up a magazine, I read it thoroughly.

Mobile phone, Email, Skype

Texts and calls on my mobile phone as well as emails are recorded as number of items sent/made, as it was easier to measure than the exact amount of time spent using them.

I have an unusually low number of calls made with my mobile phone, which is explained by my adversity to calling people in favour of texting ("Skype-ing") them. The number of texts is pretty stable. The low number of emails sent surprised me a little.

Skype is my main mean of communicating with my friends and family at home and as is evident from table 1, I spend a considerable amount of time talking to people at home.

iPod

I listen to my iPod every day; the amount of time depends on whether I work out and for how long since I usually work out listening to music. I included my iPod to this media use diary since it is, next to my laptop, one of the electronic devices I definitely would not want to miss.

Analysis

While some of the above results were to be expected (a lot of time spent on Facebook), there have been a few surprises. Most of them can be explained by my situation as an exchange student living in a foreign environment.

At home, I subscribe to a print newspaper, but do not do so in Australia. Thus, my use of print newspapers would, in “normal life”, be significantly higher. The same applies for magazines.

As I do not have a TV at the place I am staying at in Australia, I hardly watch any conventional TV, whereas I usually watch a lot more in Switzerland. And because I have an internet download quota here, which I am not used to, I do not download/stream as many TV shows as I would back home. That probably is also why I, unlike a lot people in the class, would not name downloading entertainment (34.7%) or streaming TV programs (33.9%) as a major online activity. I was surprised, however,  to find out that 9.4% of the class watch close to no TV, like me.
The number of emails I send depends on how many group projects or projects for my students' magazine I am working on; the last few weeks have been quiet in that respect. Skype use is very high since I need it for calling home, but even at home I would use it to call friends since I do not have a landline telephone in my dorm room.
Compared to the other students in the course, my internet use seems to be fairly average.
The total time I spend online daily (including Skype, online news etc.) of 2.69 hours is similar to the amount of time that 25.6% of the other students spend online, but still far away from the 4+ hours that 34.2% of the class spend. My internet use would probably be a lot closer to that high number if I, like 77.1% of the class, owned an internet-enabled smart phone. My use of the time I spend online seems to be fairly in line with the rest of the class; however, I spend less time on writing emails but more on reading or writing blog posts, which is probably because I belong to the 3.4% of the class that write on 3 or more blogs.

Observing my media use during 14 days was very insightful and surprisingly challenging since I am almost constantly using some kind of media; reflecting on the amounts of time spent using, consuming or producing them has shown me how big of an influence media has on my life.