Response to: Who am I? What is my relationship to media? (Kunal)

To start, I’m Kunal and I’m just a typical guy pursuing a college education so that I can hopefully advance to a career that I will enjoy and gain the solid financial security that completely eluded my parents. Even though I was born in India, I lived there little more than a year and have been a New Yorker for nearly my whole life. Despite that, I was raised with Indian and generally eastern values and traditions which were generally at odds with the culture in America and its media. Most people will say that I don’t talk much, if at all. Such a statement will baffle my friends though. Even though I’m generally a guy who takes work seriously, I like to have some fun as much as anyone and can often be distracted from work. I use media primarily for entertainment and reading or looking up information. Content on the internet and video games are what I most frequently look at. I do, however, consider the media to be a double-edged sword.

On one hand, the media contains a vast amount of information I would never be able to find otherwise and it has the best ways to kill the time or get rid of boredom. I often spend time on the internet reading or watching random things that I find to be funny or entertaining or looking at some tech news for any gadget worth getting. I’m also quite fond of setting up IM conversations with my friends. Before I got a reliable internet connection many years ago, I didn’t interact with the media much besides a few TV shows and video games. Once I became a regular internet user, I found out about so many things I missed out on and discovered so much content I’d never even known about before. I played catch up on classic shows, music, movies, and video games I missed out on as a child. I use the internet so much primarily for its diverse content and the fact that I can find just about anything there thanks to “niche markets” which will always have something I will really like. I also like it for how much choice and control it gives you over what you can choose to see and when. Despite all the fun I can have with media, I also find it to be a double edged sword.

On the other hand, there are so many things in the media that never cease to irritate me. One thing is all of the useless stuff I find in news reports. For example, I hear about a celebrity scandal, marriage, or breakup every 5 minutes on the news and always ask why is this important or why should I care? I also can’t stand all of the nonsense I find in media coverage of politics. It makes me cringe that so many people actually listen to and believe the nonsensical things commentators like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Bill O Reilly say. I stopped taking politics seriously after all of the nonsense the media covered about Obama like how some said he’s a Muslim and wasn’t born in America rather than covering the actual issues at hand. The sharpest point on this double-edge sword for me is how many popular things are downright terrible or boring and drown out those that are better. Thankfully, the internet provides me with many ways to find more quality content in all forms of media and more accurate information on political issues, news reports and even more from its vast database of information. While the media has so many things that are irritating, it has more than enough of the opposite to make it something I can enjoy interacting with daily.











(How this isn't a lolcats is beyond me but it works.)