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Uma 
Sarkar

TAMU '24

Howdy!

I'm in CSCE 445 because I think that a distinguishing feature of our times is the sheer quantity of media we have access to, and I want to stay on top of the changing landscape. Technology has facilitated new forms of media, and this changes the way that we interact with each other and with thought itself. 

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Media I consume

  • Movies​​

    • Bollywood ​

      • Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani​

      • Three Idiots

    • Romantic comedies

      • When Harry Met Sally​

    • Indie​

      • Past Lives​

      • Asteroid City

    • Bengali movies

      • Apu Sansar​

      • The Home and the World

  • Television Shows​​

    • Sitcoms​

      • New Girl​

      • Seinfeld

    • Kdramas​

      • Start-Up

      • Crash Landing in You

    • Reality TV​

      • Masterchef​

      • Top Chef

    • Animated​

      • Avatar​

      • Gravity Falls

      • Phineas and Ferb

  • Books

    • nonfiction/essay-based

      • Joan Didion​

        • The White Album ​

        • Slouching Towards Bethlehem

      • Malcolm Gladwell

        • Outliers​

        • Talking to Strangers

    • historical fiction​

      • WWII based books​

        • The Book Thief

        • To All the Light I Cannot See

  • ​​Short Form Media 

    • ​Tiktok​

    • Instagram reels

    • Youtube​​

  • Music​

    • Pop​

      • Taylor Swift​

      • Maisie Peters

      • Shawn Mendes

    • Folk​

      • Noah Kahan​

      • Mumford & Sons

    • Hindi/Bengali

      • Arijit Singh​

    • Spanish​

      • Bellanova​

      • Sebastian Yatra

      • Bad Bunny

    • Kpop

      • BTS​

      • Itzy

  • Social Media​

    • Bereal​

    • Instagram

    • Twitter

  • Apps to keep track of my media​

    • Letterboxd (movies)​

    • Goodreads (books)

  • Stand Up Comedy​​​

    • John Mulaney​

    • Vir Das

  • Productivity

    • Email​

      • Gmail​

      • Yahoo​

    • Organizational​

      • Notion​

  • Games​​

    • Websites​

      • Coolmath.com​

      • Poptropica

    • Apps​

      • Kitchen Scramble​

      • NYT games

  • Media I create​​

    • Photographs​

      • Google Photos​

      • Apple iCloud

    • Journal entries/Blog posts ​​

      • Substack​

      • Penzu

  • Podcasts

    • Educational​

      • Classical Stuff You Should Know​

      • The Intelligence from The Economist

    • Technology​

      • Lex Friedman​

      • The Technically Human Podcast

    • Fun​

      • Show Me How Good It Gets with Maalvika Bhat​

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Challenge about the media I consume

The main challenge I've noticed personally with the popularity of shorter-form media (originally Vine in 2016, now Tiktok and Tiktok replicas on various platforms like Instagram) is a decline in my attention span. The software challenge behind this may be the addictive scrolling algorithms that show you media without you necessarily seeking it out. This does mean I am exposed to certain trends and content that I wouldn't have otherwise, but that also means I have been intentionally seeking out media substantially less. 

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I've found it increasingly difficult to consume slower forms of media such as books, or even at times movies. To remedy this I made the decision to intentionally seek out slower forms of media by trying to read articles instead of tweets and watch movies instead of TikTok. 

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