Mady's Media Blog

With midterms behind me and a routine setting in, I felt like I had more time this week than I have in months! In my head I thought it would the perfect time to catch up on journal (oops!), reply to all of my emails, and prepare for the upcoming week. Instead I fell even further behind in my journal, have even more emails to reply to, and feel like I am still playing catch up with the semester. What happened? Youtube happened. I feel like I am able to control my "screen time" pretty well when I am busy. But when I have time, it starts to control me. Don't get me wrong, I found some great videos about strangers helping each other, seeking discomfort, and overcoming fears. But I felt guilty the whole time I was doing it because I knew there were better things I could be doing with my time. The bad thing is, it happened for a few days. I feel like managing my time wisely is very important, and so I set some goals to keep the screen time to a reasonable amount this week. ...

The realization that you can video chat with multiple people on Snapchat has changed my life this semester! I have always been close to my family, but once I come back to school in the fall communication between my sisters and I heavily relies on our group text message and videos sent through snapchat. But even then, we all have different schedules and end up replying hours later. Then we found the new(ish) video call feature on snapchat. All four of us can get on at the same time and talk! We have designated 8:30pm for us in Utah/Idaho, and 7:30pm for those in Nevada as "Sister Snapchat time." Every day can be a bit excessive, but it allows us to talk about things we normally wouldn't tell each other in the group texts. I also get to see my niece who is a year and a half grow day to day as she learns new words and showcases her growing personality. Media can be such a great tool in creating and enhancing our relationships when we let it! Enjoy this screenshot I took wh...

This week as I searched for music for my choreography midterm assignment, I was struggling to find a dynamic and interesting song. While I was watching Hulu one day, the new iPhone advertisement came on. I was instantly drawn to the music and immediately google searched the song. This lead me through a rabbit hole of amazing Apple advertisements that all had great music. It made me realize how important good music is in advertising. When I think of Apple Music, I automatically think of the Taylor Swift advertisement when she is singing along to Drake's song, Jumpman, and falls off of the treadmill.   With iWatch, I think of the commercial featuring Tkay Maidza's Bom Bom, which my sisters and I party to all the time now because of that commercial. Not only do I get great, new music from these advertisements, but every time I listen to these songs now I think about the associated Apple product.  I ended up downloading Nothing Burns Like the Cold by Snoh Aalegra for my mi...

I can't help but step back and take a look at my social media use after President Nelson's challenge to participate in a 10-day social media fast. I'm not a big social media user. I usually get on once a day before I go to bed to catch up with my friends and family. Therefore, this social media fast did not seem all that daunting to me. I'm sure my friends will still be taking hikes, and my young cousins will still be drawing pictures and making their parents laugh in ten days. But then the night of the first day came. I had my set aside social media time before bed, so what was I going to do with this time? President Nelson challenged us to see if our priorities changed, and see what we did with our additional time. I ended up watching YouTube.  There are a lot of better things I can think of that I could have done. So why YouTube? We have so much technology these days I feel like we demand entertainment. Now. Are you bored watching a movie? Don't worry, you ca...