Joshua, 18

Media Consumption: 10 hours per day (school and leisure)

How are you using media during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Well, it has definitely increased because when I was on campus at UCLA, I would spend most free time hanging out with friends on campus, but now I have to interact with friends through social media — Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat — and my YouTube time has gone up a lot. Just overall an increase in social media use.

How many hours a day do you use digital technology?

I would say a good chunk of my time. Most of my day — at least 10 hours a day on-screen, which includes school and everything else. For school-related activities, at least 6 hours school because I have coding which is online, and I can’t do any of it on paper. For personal use, probably 4 hours.

What are some social media channels that you use? What are their purposes? What are some pros and cons about each?

I am on Instagram a lot. I usually see what people post and what they are up to. But most of the time I’m on TikTok because it’s so addictive. The scrolling option is really addicting. I don’t know if it’s a pro or con but it consumes a lot of my time. More than I would like it to. So I would say probably 3 out of my 4hours — if I spend 4 hours a day — would be on TikTok because you get that addictive scrolling. It’s not the same with Instagram because TikTok allows you to see 6-second videos and you scroll and get hooked on something else again and again. I first got into TikTok at the start of quarantine because I wanted to feel more connected to people. And it's just another outlet to do that.

Do you try to limit your media use? How?

Since I’ve been at home, I know I’ve had too much screen time so I am trying to limit my time for both personal and school use because I do not want to ruin my eyes. Most of the time, I try to cut down my personal use because I can’t help my school-related stuff. I try to cut off my TikTok time as much as I can. On the TikTok app, a guide pops up every so often and says “You’ve been on here for a while. You probably need to get some rest,” which is helpful. I do have notifications on YouTube for if you watch for too long (1 hour) or if it’s your bedtime. For TikTok, I don’t have anything set up, which tells me how much time I’ve been on it. So 3 hours can go by and I wouldn’t notice. So I should probably set up an alarm now that I think about it.

When did you get your first phone? What type of phone was it?

This was back in the day, so I was probably 8-years-old; 2010. It was a BlackBerry. It was one of those that had a wheel on it with the plastic keyboard. So there wasn't much functionality to it. I just played a game where you bounced the ball and hit stuff. I didn’t really contact anyone with it besides my parents because my peers did not have phones at that age. For smartphones, I got my first one in 2013/14. I did more than press plastic keyboards.

How did your parents regulate your technology usage growing up?

Once I came to college, funny enough, they encouraged me to install an app. I forgot what it was called but it basically tracks your location. So wherever I would go, they would monitor where I was at. So I guess they were paranoid of how much freedom I had in college. But before that, in high school, they would monitor messages without me knowing. So I thought that was kind of weird. I don’t think they cared about the content. They didn’t give me murder games but as long as it was within a reasonable range, they won’t care about what I was playing. In terms of screen time, they were responsible parents and limited my screen time when I was on my PS3 or tablet or phone.

Have you been influenced by ads you saw on social media?

I noticed that after I looked something up, they had popped up for that thing I looked up. So whenever I see ads, it's for something that I’ve already seen or looked up so I don’t really pay much attention to them. I actually installed an ad skipper for YouTube. So every time a skip ads button pops up, this ad skipper automatically clicks it so I don’t have to deal with clicking it, so I don’t even watch the ads.

How do you feel about big companies taking your data and feeding it to advertisers?

I think it’s kind of creepy and more annoying than anything. I’ve seen these things and looked it up and it’s just really annoying.

What is your favorite/least favorite thing about media/technology?

I like how many different perspectives I get to see. Not so much from Instagram and Snapchat because the media you consume is based on who you follow. But TikTok is personalized to you in a way that it gives you content that you like but not necessarily [have] seen before. So I like that I get to see a lot of different people that I wouldn’t have otherwise seen because I don’t follow them.

Do you have any thoughts on Facebook?

Before college, I thought that Facebook was only for old people. But now that I’m in college, I realize the importance of it. Because for the Dragon Boat Team, we really utilize all the features such as Facebook messaging, announcements, and discussions. So I like how all of that is intertwined with one another and we could create events on Facebook and send reminders to people. I don’t really use the Facebook platform for anything other than that. But I have been using Facebook messenger a lot more recently. I use it as my main source of communication with people.

What is one thing you want the people who create the media you like to watch/play/interact with to know?

I appreciate those messages that pop up for TikTok. I haven’t put something in my settings where it's like I only want an hour of screen time. So I appreciate those messages from TikTok saying you probably spend too much time on this app and it’s probably time for you to go to bed.

Do you think screentime is bad before going to bed?

I think it might be for some but for me, it's kind of a routine now. It’s my routine so it gets me in the mood to sleep. I try not to let social media dictate sleep, but it often does if I’m hooked on the content. Especially TikTok when it seems like there’s an endless void of content to go through, as opposed to YouTube. When a video ends, after you watched for 40 minutes, you kind of know it’s time for you to go to bed. But for TikTok, there’s no sense of direction or time. So it’s kind of difficult to dictate when I sleep when I am on TikTok, but for other apps, I feel like it’s fine.

When the notification pops up, what do you do?

For YouTube, I know that I’ve been on there for one hour, so I should probably get off, but for TikTok, it doesn’t tell you a certain time. It feels like it's only been 5 minutes. So I feel like I could do it for a little bit more. [With YouTube] usually, I disregard the message, but I do keep it on my mind so I get off a couple of minutes later.

Interviewed by: Quynh Vo, UCLA Student