Media Smart Citizens has created a 24 Hour Media Log to help you step back and take a look at the quantity and quality of media you consume on any given day. Media has been integrated into most aspects of our day-to-day lives, even our workplaces, and we became painfully aware of our reliance on digital media during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has become easy for us to develop unproductive and draining habits with our media consumption. In order to get the most out of the way that we consume media, and to get the most out of our days, we designed the 24 Hour Media Log to track all of the mediums, time frames, and reasons we consume media on an average day. With our 24 Hour Media Log, you can track your own media consumption.

We will provide the downloadable Media Tracking form—you can draw text boxes onto the form or print the form for it to be written on. In order to not lose track of what you’ve been up to, you can set timers throughout your day to remind you to log your data. These time intervals are up to you; hourly, every two hours, every ninety minutes... At the end of each time interval, come back to your Media Tracking form and record the kinds of media you have engaged with during the interval: the medium (ie. television, social media, newspaper), the category of the content (ie. shopping, work, entertainment), specific details of the content, and the duration of time spent with each media activity. At the end of the day, take time to reflect on how much time you spent consuming media, how much time you used media for a particular purpose, and how much time you spent with any one particular medium/device.

One of the main functions of this log is to see how much of our day is spent consuming media so that we can be mindful of the trends and adjust accordingly. In highlighting these trends, we become aware of media consumption habits we didn’t even know we had. Repeat the 24 Hour Media Challenge as many times as you’d like. You can set a goal to change your media habits after your first log, and redo the challenge to see how you did. We encourage you to take the initiative to inspire smarter, healthier, and more productive media consumption.