Media in the Time of COVID

It's been a really interesting week here in my household, but it's pretty much summed up by saying: COVID-19 has found us. My sister, brother-in-law, nephew and I all tested positive for Covid this week (my roommate interestingly enough tested negative, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but hey! Maybe she just has a much better immune system than the rest of us). 

However, all of this to say that I am now in self-isolation (well, more like group-isolation) with nothing more to do with my life than consume disgusting amounts of media. Music is constantly playing, I picked up and skimmed through a book for the first time for fun this semester, every night has become movie night, and I spend hours just scrolling through the TikTok reels on my Instagram. In the last three days, my quarantine life has become basically consumed by media.

I kind of want to go insane because of it. 

I think that saying "Too much of a good thing" (insinuating that when you have too much of a good thing it becomes a bad thing) is really true. Yes, media has been great for keeping me updated on the goings-on of my friends and family. Plus, it allowed me to watch that really beautiful message from President Nelson yesterday (it really was such a great message, if you weren't able to watch it: DO IT!). But it's also become this mind-numbing distraction from this kind of sucky situation that I have found myself in. 

I think media (for me, especially social media) has that kind of effect sometimes. Like we've discussed in class, we just use it as an excuse to turn our brains off every once in a while. But now I have the time and ability to have my brain turned off for all of the hours that I am awake because I don't have very many classes and I only work about 3 hours a day. 

However, today as I was doing my scripture study, I read the story about the Jaredites being in their barges and going toward the promised land and realized that they were literally in group-isolation for just a few weeks short of a YEAR. I'm going crazy and I'm only going to be in isolation for just over a WEEK! How did they do that without going insane! The scriptures said they sang praises to the Lord while they did it. Does that count as a kind of media? Singing praises? 

In the interest of not making this insanely long, I am going to wrap it up and just say that I am going to try that kind of media: singing gratitudes. I may not specifically be "singing" them but I am going to try and take the advice of the wise Jaredites as well as President Nelson and focus on the things that I am grateful for in this self-isolated Thanksgiving season instead of using my media to distract me from the things that I am not grateful for at this time in my life. 

Should make for the most interesting Thanksgiving ever I think.