The Australian Open began this week!
For those of you who are new to my blog, I am talking about the first of the four professional tennis Grand Slams of 2016. For those of you who know me well, you know how obsessed I am with professional tennis. In 2009 my mom and I went to Wimbledon (the 3rd Grand Slam of the season). While I was there I got up close and personal with my all-time favorite player, Roger Federer! That's me with the glasses and that's Roger signing my program. That program has become one of my favorite possessions. I am such a tennis nerd.
Anyway, you may be thinking, "Stephen, how does this relate to the media?" Well, I will tell you. There is an 18 hour time difference between Australia and Provo, Utah. That means that the matches start live at 7pm here while it is midday in Australia the next day. I try to watch as much live tennis as I can but I am a new dad, college student working two jobs and an internship. I only have so much energy to give. Luckily I have DVR. I can record all the tennis and watch it at a more convenient time. My wife makes fun of me though because I access other forms of media (tennis.com, atp.com, wta.com, facebook, etc) to find out scores before I watch the matches. Tara always asks me why I would look up the scores and still watch the matches if I know the results anyway. I don't have a good answer for her but it is just what I do. I want to stay up-to-date with the scores but sometimes I get bogged down with responsibilities that I can't watch the tennis for a little while. I like to stay current with scores even if I am behind on watching the matches. Then I will zip through the matches that I don't care as much about and I am able to rewind and re-watch the matches I do care about. I can watch 9-12 hours of recorded tennis in a fraction of the time. Isn't that so cool?!? Back in the day before the internet, DVR machines, and even before ESPN and cable access, how did people watch tennis? I can't figure it out. You wouldn't be able to find out the scores until months later or if you were able to watch it was probably grainy and hard to make out who was playing who. Now I can find out the scores and specific stats as the match is going on and I can literally watch the sweat drip from players' faces. Media technology has come a long way and I am really grateful for it.
Thank you media technology for letting me indulge!
I am loving this Australian Open so far. My favorites are looking good and there have been a lot of entertaining matches. I love spending two weeks being immersed in tennis at the highest level.
Go Roger and Serena! 
So clearly tennis is a indulgent/guilty pleasure for me when it comes to media usage. In your comments for this week let me know how media technology allows you to indulge. What are some of your media guilty pleasures? No judgement, I promise.
I'm so glad I don't have DVR because my usage of it would be to record all the TV shows I love!! I LOVE Hawaii Five-O and Survivor and watch way too much of both!
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you like to keep up on the score even before you watch the game. I think most people are the opposite. During Survivor season, my Mom avoids all forms of social media until she watches the most recent episode because she knows all of her friends will be making comments on her Facebook about it.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I guess I'm obsessed with new foods and learning new recipes, so Pinterest has helped me to indulge.