Tag: media representation

How do phone notifications impact us?

When I sit down to eat dinner with my family or to have coffee with a colleague I always place my phone face down on the table. I do this because I know if I don’t every push notification will pull me out of the present face-to-face interaction I am having, and push me into the digital world, taking away from the real-time human connectivity.

Notifications have become a part of our everyday lives. We get notified when someone messages us, when a package has shipped, when a friend likes our post or when our groceries are ready to pick up. Notifications of new shows that we “must” see!, new goods we “may want” to purchase, services we “need” to subscribe to or news that might be of interest to us and the list can go on. Maybe even infinitely…

Representation in the Media

Identity is defined as “the distinguishing character or personality of an individual.” Many things go into the making of a person’s identity, including their gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality, political orientation, religious beliefs, age, physical/personality attributes, etc.

Although each of these aspects certainly matter in determining individual identity, it is almost impossible to accurately understand someone’s feelings of self worth and their experience of being in the world based solely on these attributes. This tick-box list of identity categories can lead to us seeing each other as caricatures, rather than as unique individuals with nuanced ways of identifying and relating to the world around us.