Rebecca Ruhlman Designs Welcome to the drafting table of RARDesigns. A full-service media design firm.
Okay, l’ve had the same cell phone for about three years now and two weeks ago it burnt my hand. That was the end of that. I shopped around and found out that I was paying way too much for my plan anyhow and if I jumped ship I could upgrade phones for little changes in plan cost. That and I was getting asked to make more and more content for wireless consumers.
So, I bit the bullet and got an iPhone.
Resistance is Futile
“Just in the past few weeks, I have fully assimilated into the Borg – the one Jobsian consciousness.”
Let me just say, I was one of those people that really didn’t see the point in smart phones. It’s a phone. Why spend the time typing into an instrument that is specifically designed to bypass the constraints of the written word with speech, for gosh sakes.
Well, hypocrite thy name is Becca. Just in the past few weeks, I have fully assimilated into the Borg – the one Jobsian consciousness. Through this device, and a couple other situations, I’ve severIy altered the way I consume and participate in mass-media. (I’m a designer for a mid-sized publishing company.)
So, I thought now would be a good time to see how my media diet has changed and what it says about the future of a set of industries that seem to be on the brink of implosion.
The Morning
I wake up every day around 6 a.m. – okay 6:30 a.m. – and I stumble around in the dark doing my business, putting the coffee on and such, I turn on the computron and hop in the shower. After metamorphosing from a moorlock into the spectacular goddess of starlight and rainbows that I am, I check my e-mails, sync up the podcasts for my iphone, check my favorite web comics and scoot out the door.
Now, the most wonderful part about the Chicago area is that we have a rush hour that rivals LA in congestion. My trip, which normally would take 20 minutes, stretches to about an hour-and-a-half. I take this time to listen to NPR. I get just what’s advertised – the news and information needed to start my day. Then I drag myself into work.
The Day Job
I get in check my work related e-mails, and prepare for an onslaught of morning meetings about “long-tail” marketing, new-media, flat world economics, and integrated user experiences- “tipping point”, pro-active, creative-class, diversified, yadda, yadda yadda. Basically a bunch of rich boomers, that have read the same pop sociology books, telling me how I use media and how best I can sell it to myself. I pay attention and I doodle out my plans for the rest of the day. I get back, give the rest of my group the rundown and I stream my podcasts or pandora while I bust out the design skills.
Lunch
I recheck all my e-mail accounts, fix a cup of ramen and half chat/half scour my news feeds for the day. Then it’s back to work. And around 5:30 to 6:00 p.m. I leave for home listening to NPR on the way back.
At Home
I grab some leftovers or, ick, fastfood and start my second job – searching for freelance work/a better paying job. In between I tweet/IM some snarky remarks to my friends, erase all the porn ads from my social networking sites, and think about ideas for this blog. I then put on Hulu for about an hour and go to bed.
The Weekend
Here I have a little more time so I like to go to the bookstore and check out the new magazines. I also go over to see if they have more than the same two transgender themed books. They don’t. I grab a fancy coffee and possibly a magazine or even a Sunday NYTimes. I listen to more podcasts while doing laundry and type away like right now.
What does this mean?
Notice how there was no paper involved until Sunday? Print has become a luxury good at budget/staple prices. I don’t have the time or space to read a newspaper during the week. Plus, with the iphone I can get feeds directly from local sources without having to wait for the Tribune to pick it up from the AP. I also am plugged in throughout the day, receiving most of my information audibly or via tiny bites on the internet. My sources are also basic mainstream media news sources.
At home, I have time for longer form news and opinion. This is when I pay attention to my friend-sourced blogs and contacts. I can multi-task at a slower rate and absorb more of what’s going on.
You know what else is weird? I didn’t mention TV. This is a particular change that just happened this year. I haven’t been able to afford cable for a while, but I used to still watch broadcast. That is until the digital transition. I bought the box and a fancy new antenna but I actually got worse reception than before. My five viewable channels went down to two, and they were both in Spanish. I said screw broadcast I’m streaming on the internet. So, between Hulu, Youtube and Chinese TV stations pirating US shows on the internet my TV diet is covered. This does put me on sort of a time delay as many things don’t show up online until a couple days later, but I can still feel connected -
all-be-it much later.
The lesson is that I, as a consumer, am probably more connected to news product than ever before, and I consume news across many mediums. The trick is, as more and more of our day is taken, finding the best, most cost-effective way to get that message across. This does not mean abandoning creators and reporters. And, this does not mean the disappearance of the newsroom or well-paid professionals. We just have to think about the day-to-day life of the consumer.
Possible solutions are for next week. So… stay classy San Diego.
Tags: borg, consumer, Hulu, iphone, jobsian, Journalism, marketing, mass media, Media, news, opinion, tribune
2 Responses to “My days as a media consumer”
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I could have sworn I already left a comment on this!
Anyway, I like this article because I think you are a perfect example of the media consumer media outlets need to worry about. You’re young, smart, mobile, and you want to consume media when you want. I don’t see consumers becoming less like you in the future and media outlets have got to take note of this and adapt.
So you’re the Russian spammer promising me FREE, sexy good time?!
thanks. BTW, the same goes for bridesmaid positions with you as well. I didn’t pick out this lime-green taffeta dress for nothing.