Journal Entry 10: Images

This week’s discussion focused around the topic of television within society today and its relevance and or power that it holds on media consumers. One of the articles pertaining to this week’s discussion focused around comparing the consuming experience of television versus the Internet. The article referred to the two experiences as television, lean back, and the Internet, lean in. What the author meant by this was how when consuming these two mediums, the viewer is taking part is a completely difference experience in which television is more relaxing and the Internet is more active and takes the consumer’s full attention. I can completely relate to this fact and agree with the author’s findings. Since living in London, my experience with television and Internet use has made me have a unique opinion on this topic. When at home in Los Angeles, television served as a form of social bonding. I lived in my sorority house this past year and none of us had televisions in our rooms. Rather, there was one large communal television in which each of us gathered together and watched all of our favorite shows each night. It was a special time in which all of us have the ability to relax, comment on certain aspects of the show and laugh together over the characters we loved on screen. It is a daily activity that I have since missed since living in London. My television viewing experience is entirely different in London. With the limited television channels and overall quality of the television provided in our flats, each of us rely on our computers and the Internet in order to keep up with all the shows we watch back at home. Rather than partake in a relaxing pass time together, we sit on our own and watch our own programs on our individual computers. There is nothing like kicking up your feet on the coffee table and flipping through the channels while watching TV. When it comes to watching television on the computer, it often leaves me frustrated due to our poor Internet connection and is not nearly as comfortable or as valued an experience. When I am on the Internet, it is definitely a lean in experience in which I am actively searching the web and doing a hundred tasks at one time. I will watch my television program online but am often checking my Facebook or email simultaneously. It is a completely different viewing experience. I am less focused and do not find myself fully relaxing as I do when I watch television on the real screen. I am looking forward to my return home when I get to plop on the couch and surf the channels on a lazy day with friends and family together.