Introduction

Hello my name is Ayah Elgendy and I'm doing a BFA in graphic design. I'm a Muslim, Egyptian, American who was born and raised in central Jersey. I love science and all things design. I really appreciate how design makes me think critically, conceptually, and visually about everything around me. I like everything from architecture and motion design to even sock designs. I value family/friend ties, my religion, hard work and kindness. My family to me are my best friends. Although we argue a lot, they are the closest people to me. The same goes with my friends, I treat them like family. I think I value hard work and kindness because one earns respect and another earns love. I look at my religion as a lifestyle, most of the decisions I make are based off of my beliefs. Overall I think it makes me understand why I am who I am. Media consumption definitely plays a huge role in my life, especially with my line of work. As graphic designers a big part of our job is to make difficult things simple for people to understand. We can do that through all forms of media like instagram, web design, commercial design, branding and marketing, motion design, written media and etc. I think that media consumption fills up 99% of graphic design. Media also plays a role in my social life for sure. I’m on instagram all the time. I listen to radio stations, podcasts, youtube, I read magazines, posts, and books. I watch tv, movies, and viral videos. I also use it as a way to creatively express myself, through photography. Media consumption definitely has a positive role in society. It acts as a form of communication and enhances relationships. For example, my cousins live in Egypt, and the first time I ever met them was in 2011 and I thought because my Arabic wasn’t that great and I had never seen them before, that we weren’t going to have anything in common. But when I spoke to them I realized that we were watching the same movies, listening to the same music and we new political situations in both countries. It was insane to me that through media consumption my cousins on the opposite side of the world had things in common with me. Media consumption is also great when it comes to giving you a voice. Standing up for rights and bringing people together. It keeps you informed about your society and other places around the entire world. It helps you surround yourself with the type of energy you like to surround yourself with. It gives different perspectives about different topics you might not have thought of before. I also helps us progress in technology. On the other hand there’s a negative part to media consumption. I think the number one thing is that it can be a HUGE FORM OF DISTRACTION. In all ways, it can distract you from your work, from responsibilities you have towards your significant other, or just your general responsibilities. One of the main ways every government in the entire world tries to distract people is through media consumption, and it works. It can also lower our attention spans. It keeps us from being able to communicate with human interaction. It can also attain false information because of specific biases. It can make us immune to catastrophes happening around us and around the world. For example, unfortunately, recently I’ve noticed there’s been a large amount of suicides and it’s almost like now someone passes away, we just scroll past. So it definitely affects us in a negative aspect. Overall, I think that there’s a good and bad side to media consumption and we need to work towards balancing it. I don’t agree with the two extremes of doing everything through media consumption vs. never having any media consumption ever again. I think that there’s really good positives to it and everyone individually needs to understand how to use it efficiently in our lives. https://www.instagram.com/ayah_elgendy/