Part C- Essay. Write a 4-5 page reflective essay regarding the media diet and media tracking and what you learned about your media use and yourself. MINIMUM 1200 WORDS.

Title Introduction We all use our smartphones in our daily lives. Faster and cheaper internet and the huge spike of handheld internet-enabled devices have made people very addicted to smartphones and social media sites. We generally first start to use smartphones. At a particular time, we realize that over the years we have built a habit of making our smartphones an indisputable part of our lives. At that point, it becomes very difficult for us to come back to normalcy. Even though there are some notable benefits of using smartphones, using them extensively can cause serious problems in our daily lives. Sometimes, we do not even notice how wrongly increased media use has influenced our behavior and the way we live. That is where this "media diet and media tracking" exercise comes in. Needless to say, it made a tremendous influence on my reflection and understanding of myself and opened my eyes regarding my media usage. Extensive media use can have a variety of negative impacts and it negatively affects my social life and study performance. Main Body Firstly, I have noticed that my media use makes me socially not connected. Even though Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter call themselves "social" media sites to improve social connection, it does exactly the opposite. Being on social media all the time makes me think that I am happy and I have many friends. But, the reality is very contrasting. Social media friends are generally not my real friends because I do not know when or if ever I will meet them. On the other hand, social media apps also keep me away from my real friends. For example, I stopped calling my friends and family members, I used to play only mobile games not real ones, I considered distant social media friends as my real friends, etc. Also, after I became addicted to social media apps I used to go out to my locality a lot less than before. I am not blaming Covid 19 lockdown for this because my unconscious process of getting detached from social life started way before covid 19 came into existence. My relationship with other people became static and it gradually started to break because of a lack of interaction with them. This is very bad because it makes a huge impact on my life and relationship with other people. Socialization is very helpful in many scenarios and the impact of the same can last longer than expected (Lissak, 2018). I have personally felt that it has pushed me into the darkness of deteriorated physical and mental health. Not being able to socialize impacted my mental and physical health. I feel lonely at times, I also face problems while sleeping. It has also increased my anxiety. My mother has also pointed out that I often become angrier now even in small incidents. When it comes to physical health, I have gained 1.8 kg in the last 8 months. Thus, not being able to socialize can have multiple bad impacts. Interestingly, I would not have noticed the real reasons behind these changes in me if the "media diet and media tracking" exercise was not done in class. It has opened my eyes and I finally feel the urge to take a step forward. The ability to socialize can help me here to get out of this situation and to do that I need to cut down on media dependency and use (Barthorpe et al., 2020). However, socialization is not the only impact that media use has made on me. My increased media use has also impacted my study performance. A peculiar thing that I have recently noticed is how I use my smartphone while studying even though that is not necessarily for very important tasks. The habit has also made me use my smartphone even when I am at school and teachers are giving lectures. This is a bad habit because it ruins the experience of the whole lecture. Additionally, not giving attention to the lecture can also have a huge negative impact on my grade. On the other hand, such a bad habit of multitasking while in a class is another way to show disrespect to the teachers present in the class (Arundell et al., 2021). My increased media use has gone to a certain extent where I need to draw a line. However, I never gave it a thought until the diet exercise came in. During the diet exercise, as I had no mobile phone to use while studying I found it very helpful in a number of ways. Firstly, I was able to concentrate more on my study. It was making my study hours more efficient. Secondly, I was able to find small details in every textbook and lecture note that I was somehow unconsciously skipping. Thus, the diet helped me to concentrate on various aspects of my study. I was receiving no notification while studying and that was helping me not to get distracted every now and then. My productivity and efficiency increased considerably. That is how I was able to get more time to study. I also found that I am performing better in assignments and that has made me less anxious than before (Hooghe & Oser, 2015). It will also give me more confidence when appearing in exams. I found that no screen and no notification is not that bad actually, especially, when I am studying where more concentration is needed to get success. Thus, this diet exercise has really helped me in my study and understand where the problem was behind my average performance recently. Conclusion Thus, in the above discussion, I have highlighted how the "media diet and media tracking" exercise has helped me to reflect on myself better. I can understand that too much screen time was affecting my ability to socialize, my physical and mental health condition, my performance in academics, and whatnot. Increased screen use was ruining my social life. My homesickness was becoming evident because I was facing health issues but after doing the "media diet and media tracking" exercise I am feeling that I am much better now. If I continue to do such exercise, that will help me to find my own self more than I think that such health issues might be gone forever. I feel that this experience has allowed me to think about myself more. I personally feel that if such activities can continue then it will be better for everyone. Initially, it was very tough to get accustomed to a life without smartphones. But, when I reached the third or the last day of the "media diet and media tracking" exercise I was able to understand the good vibes that this exercise has brought into my life. However, staying disconnected from friends and families and completely stopping to use smartphones is not possible. That is why I want to limit my smartphone usage. I use an android phone where I can limit the screen time of every individual app. I can also block notifications of them. This is how I will try to change my habits of using smartphones extensively. These changes will make me more productive and help me to stay concentrated on my goal. Page Break References Arundell, L., Veitch, J., Sahlqvist, S., Uddin, R., Ridgers, N. D., Salmon, J., ... & Parker, K. (2021). Changes in Families’ Leisure, Educational/Work and Social screen time behaviours before and during COVID-19 in Australia: Findings from the our life at home study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(21), 11335. Barthorpe, A., Winstone, L., Mars, B., & Moran, P. (2020). Is social media screen time really associated with poor adolescent mental health? A time use diary study. Journal of affective disorders, 274, 864-870. Hooghe, M., & Oser, J. (2015). Internet, television and social capital: the effect of ‘screen time’on social capital. Information, Communication & Society, 18(10), 1175-1199. Lissak, G. (2018). Adverse physiological and psychological effects of screen time on children and adolescents: Literature review and case study. Environmental research, 164, 149-157.