Thinking/Writing: Digital Media

I wrote a college essay about the liberation of deleting Instagram the summer before my senior year of high school. It was grandiose and self-righteous and not ill-intentioned by any means. These days, I have a small, very silly Instagram account where I feel free to post just about anything. I also have Facebook, Pinterest, Marco Polo, and VSCO accounts, and probably a few more that I’m forgetting. I love to read (mostly physical books), to draw, and to write. I like to read a few blogs, mostly about beauty or fashion, but also about political situations, social movements, etc. My favorite pieces of media are ones that combine all of the above: aesthetically provoking + emotionally/intellectually engaging. This applies to books, blog posts, documentaries (lookin’ at you BBC’s Animal Planet), twitter accounts, etc. (Does Learning Suite count as media? I think it only really counts as a curse from the adversary to convince me to attend Paul Mitchell instead of BYU. But I bring it up because it does in fact service my needs and for that I am grateful.)

Wikipedia is the lifeblood of my soul. I think it’s one of the best things available to us as people (if not necessarily as academics—the good news is that most of us aren’t academics). I love being able to tap into absolutely any subject, and then make a million different connections and insights based on that profile.

My personal guidelines are generally in flux: I think most of us have a hate/love relationship to social media, specifically, like the rest of the world. I have pretty conservative standards when it comes to film and music, although I love a good Wes Anderson film as much as the next person. Most of those standards are dictated by my religious beliefs: I really do think there’s so much out there that is of good report and praiseworthy, though, and not in the traditional, culturally-Mormon sense.

As a teacher, I want my students to think a lot about their own personal guidelines. It’s not my right to tell them what those guidelines should be, but determining one’s personal standards for media consumption/just about anything is an invaluable experience. The kids I’ll be teaching will be anywhere from 12 to 18 years old—the prime time to begin thinking about the responsibility and wonder of creating the self. What dictates how they feel about various aspects of media? What makes them who they are? What will they choose to leave behind, and what will they choose to take with them. I love this practice in conjunction with the media, particularly certain books with swear words or sexual references, that I would like present to my students. Will I get fired? Will parents tell me I’m leading their children to hell? Who know! It’ll be a wild ride figuring it out and trying to imbue my students with a sense of independence and exploration in terms of both their creation and consumption of media.