As a journalist, I was interested in learning about the kinds of news media I generally consume: where it’s from, the sources I tend to go to, whether information is pushed to me (via social media or e-newsletters) or I actively seek it out. I used RescueTime and a media log to figure out how and where I was getting my news.

An American Affair

I was surprised to learn that almost all of my top news media sources were American. In fact, US-based news sources far outstripped my media from any other country, with Canada and the UK trailing behind. Mainstream media sources—NPR, the New Yorker, the New York Times—represented the bulk of my media diet. I also spent a lot of time reading about the changes in the media industry these past few days. (General news stories were the main focus, followed by science-related stories, and then media-related stories.)

Push vs. Pull

As well, I found that I spent almost as much time wading through news information that is pushed to me as I do seeking out news.

The Sadness of Endless Scroll

When it comes to news media, I mostly gathered information online (using my computer and my iPhone), though I also got a healthy portion of news through the radio or podcasts. What didn’t make it on to my graph was the vast number of websites I had visited for only minutes or even seconds, according to RescueTime. Of my top news sources, Twitter and Feedly represented a large proportion of the time I spent consuming media, which suggests I was scrolling through stories and reading tweets and snippets of stories instead of diving deep.

The Tyranny of Gmail

Finally, I was distressed by the amount of time I dedicated to Gmail. Nearly seven hours in five days, and two of those days fell on a weekend when I tend to use email less than during weekdays.

Reading books—for classes and pleasure—was my third most popular media activity, after creating content on Microsoft word. This was somewhat comforting, though I am not sure it represents my typical media diet. Since I’m on leave from work at the moment and back at school, my sources of news and the way I use them differ quite a bit from the usual. Still, I would like to offer these media diet resolutions:

1) Cut the Gmail habit.
2) Dedicate more time to reading alternative news sources.
3) Seek out news sources from countries other than the US, UK, and Canada.
4) Spend less time with information that is pushed at me on the endless social media scroll and more time lingering on stories I seek out.