My Digital Media Life

The media devices that I use almost on a daily basis are: 27" iMac, 13" Macbook, XBox 360, iPhone, and my Canon 5D Mark ii (with multiple lenses).

With my iMac and Macbook, all the same media types are involved, one is just portable. They both connect me to photos, music, games, news, printing, research, and communication through email, facebook, and other internet services. In generations past there would be a lot of different "analog" elements to make up the media powerhouse that todays computers are: encyclopedias, newspapers, typewriters, books, photo albums, and communicating be either wired phones or by "snail mail."

My XBox is something that cannot quite be translated to the past generations, because entertainment and gaming is a concept that has changed so drastically. Where in the past I might have been playing a sport or doing something outdoors to entertain myself, I now do it from within my home while connecting to friends and family to play games with them even when they are a continent away.

The iPhone can translate to a lot of different "analog" devices of the past: maps and directions have been taken from a large piece of paper and word of mouth, to a taps on the iPhone, giving me all the directions that I need. Along with maps, the phone itself has changed in unimaginable ways. The phone is not only wireless, but also not confined to the walls of a home wireless system. People would have to find payphones, or just dial from home in the past, but now I can call from anywhere (well, theoretically, if AT&T had better coverage) to anywhere without any wires or phone books. There is still the entertainment features of the iPhone that mostly just replace the free time of past generations. Where in the past someone would be standing in line or waiting on the bus to get to their destination, they can entertain themselves or inform themselves through their phones.

My final media device that I use on a regular basis is my digital camera. I can take and send high quality photos to anyone in the world, from the time i press the shutter to the time I upload can be as little as five minutes with editing included. Past photographers would have to develop film, spend a lot of time in the darkroom making prints to perfect their photo, manually reproducing each one, and then finding a way to send it to whoever they wanted to show/sell their photo to... a process taking days. I can show my aunt on the other side of the country my school and my apartment without her having to leave her home... so even the way we view the world has changed because of digital cameras and the information, art, and expression that they can present to others.

There are a plethora of uses for all of these devices, and since a lot of them are adaptable devices, they can be reprogrammed to do new functions that we may have not even thought of yet... which is unlike anything analog in the past.