Blog #2

Brooke Gladstone writes about how everyone has a ‘media diet’, which is essentially the type of media you see and are surrounded by every day. This media influences you and what you believe in. The main media I ingest is from Instagram and Snapchat. On Instagram I mainly see posts about horses and training techniques as well as the things my friends are doing. I think this type of media influences my perspectives in the ‘horse world’, I see many different ways of thinking regarding the ways to train horses as well as communicate with them and understand them. Many people have different views on how to do these things with horses; some take a more aggressive standpoint and others take a more gentle approach. After seeing several posts regarding the benefits of taking a gentle, kinder approach when teaching horses, I’ve decided that it seems to be the best fit for me as well as the most effective. Seeing my friend’s posts often influences my views on what is considered ‘cool’ and sometimes gives me ideas of what to do with my friends. I recently saw a post from a friend at Playa Bowls. I had never been there so I decided to go there with another friend of mine who’d also never been there. Instagram has influenced my beliefs regarding horses, which are a large part of my life as well as how I spend time with my friends. Snapchat on the other hand has influenced my views on society because Snapchat often contains stories that go over the news and current events. There is one story called NowThis which posts quick overviews of the main stories in the news. I personally do not keep up with the news so this story is where I get my knowledge of current events from. I like watching this Snapchat story because I understand that current events are important to keep up with but I also don’t like watching the news or watching long detailed reviews of them, so by watching this I can stay updated and do so quickly. Overall, I believe my ‘media diet’ influences my knowledge of current events, horses and influences what I do with my friends. Media diets are important parts of how people view the world as well as the issues in it today.