3:00 am – Alarm clock goes off, I roll over and hit snooze. Seven minutes later it goes off again, and I turn it off.

3:30 am – 4:30 am – Back-up alarm set with Alexa goes off, and I tell Alexa to snooze. I pick up the TV remote and turn on a random program that I’ve seen many times, (currently Night Court https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086770/ ) for background noise to help me wake up and check my phone for any messages. Alexa goes off again, usually while I’m brushing my teeth, which makes telling her to turn off the alarm a bit more difficult. When I get downstairs, I turn on the TV in the dining room for background noise (usually continuing whatever I was watching in my bedroom) while I make and eat breakfast. At 4:15 am I head to my vehicle and leave for work, usually with the radio turned up and tuned into an 80s station. Most of the ads I recall hearing had to do with online education and erectile disfunction (what a combo!). I sit in the parking lot playing solitaire on my phone while I wait for my coworker.

4:30 am – 11:00 am – Work. There is a sound system in the store (no advertisements, just music) that a couple of us like to switch to 80s or Disco so the upbeat music helps keep us moving and shaking. On my break/lunch I am usually reading through Smart News posts on my phone or playing a game on a platform that I paid a small subscription fee for so that I do not get ads.

11:00 am – 12:pm – Getting in my vehicle after work, radio on as always, I check my phone for any messages or important notifications. I then head to Grocery Outlet where I am tortured by their overhead sound system blaring country music (with an occasional ad for their store). The receipt includes a coupon for my next visit and a reminder to sign up for email offers. Then back into my vehicle, with my radio, and head home.

12:00pm – 4:30 pm – Upon getting home I am now on childcare duty with my 4-year-old grandson (Covid-related issues caused him to not have preschool this week, ugh).

This results in the TV being on child-friendly shows to help keep him entertained when we are not actively playing together. I used to think Barney was the worst thing ever, until I was subjected to Baby Shark!!! The show doesn’t really teach much, except maybe that Baby Shark has lots of friends (that you can buy and play with), and has no real educational content. Several times during this 4½ hr time span, I try to log on to my computer to work on my homework, however my grandson’s radar is keen and as soon as I touch the keyboard, he climbs into my lap so that I can’t type. While he sits on my lap, I will play games (usually Microsoft Solitaire or Puzzle Page, both of which I have ad-free subscriptions to), read Smart News, or attempt a video or reading assignment on my phone. Around 4:30 his mom gets home and I am off to start dinner.

4:30 pm – 6:00 pm – I pull up Hello Fresh on my phone app to read through the cooking directions for tonight’s meal. Several times I get reminders from the app that I have free boxes I can “send” to my friends so that they can try the service for themselves. Other than the Hello Fresh app, I’m not really paying attention to other media that’s on, but there is a TV on in the living room for the child, his mom is reading a book on her phone, the child is ignoring the TV and playing a PBS Kids game on his phone (it’s an old cell phone with no sim card so can’t make calls and only works with wifi), and my teenage son is playing something VR in his room. When dinner is done, they all descend upon the kitchen, dish up their food, then go back to their devices. After I dish myself up, I put the leftovers away and watch a show in the dining room while I eat. Tonight it’s an old episode of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. It amazes me that many of the issues from the 60s and 70s that this show brought up are still issues today (racism, voting rights, women’s rights, government accountability), and that some episodes were mildly prophetic (in the segment “News of the Future” for 1988 they mention President Reagan, in reference to then California Governor Reagan who was, indeed, president 1981-1988.

It’s about 5:30 into this clip

6:00 pm – 9:00pm – This is finally my homework time. I log on to my laptop to access my class content. This includes accessing my school, online news articles, scholarly articles (through ASU or Google Scholar), recorded lectures, YouTube videos, and search engines. Everything I’m access during this period is school related.

9:00 pm – 3:00 am – I fall asleep (hopefully) watching Futurama and/or playing solitaire on my phone. I can’t explain how it happened, but I seem to have programmed myself that Futurama = sleep, so the only time I can watch it now is if I want to nap or it’s bedtime.

I will admit that this is not necessarily an ordinary day of usage for me. Based on this I’m a pretty low target for information. They can figure out from my streaming that there is probably a grandparent/grandchild living here. On a more typical day I’m likely to wander over to Amazon, where I will get lots of targeted advertisements either for things I am currently searching or things I (or my kids) have previously searched. The fact that I use their Subscribe and Save service also creates more targeting in things their algorithms think I might be interested in adding to my subscription based not only on current subscriptions but previous searches. I try to tell myself that I don’t fall prey to targeted advertising, but I am also well aware of my tendency to impulse shopping, which is what many of those targeted ads are counting on.