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My most prominent memory relating to the 'Media Timeline' was the switch from VHS to DVDs. My brother (my junior by three years)has no memory of VHS so I wonder if me and my older sister were the last generation to use them. I remember my Dad buying us a DVD player and telling us to donate our VHS videos since we would have no use for them now. This change was met with must disdain by my younger self, since I couldn't understand why we couldn't still use them and was reluctant to throw away the videos we had.

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I was introduced to material culture at a young age. Each Christmas, my Grandma would bring us an 'Argos Catalogue' along with some marker pens and encouraged us to flick through the pages and circle items which we wanted for Christmas.

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I lived in the neighboring town to my primary school, whereas most of my friends were situated closer to the school itself. This meant that to talk to them at the weekends, I had to ask to use the landline. I owned a small phone book with the numbers of all my friends and family and remember fiddling with the long, coiled wire while on the phone. We would often take it in turns to call each other to make sure that no one got charged for too many minutes.

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The first book that I experienced that 'can't put down' feeling was 'Malory Towers' by Enid Blyton. I read them back-to-back and even attempted to beg my Mum to let me go to boarding school after reading about the adventures that the girls got up to there. Looking back, the books helped me to grow my imagination. The predominantly female characters, who strayed away from the otherwise stereotypical traits of girl-hood that I was familiar with at the time (such as being saved by a male hero), introduced me to the idea that I didn't have to be limited by my gender.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nQ2oiVqKHw

During primary school, we had to partake in weekly ICT lessons. We learned the basics of using a computer, and different functions such as 'Microsoft Word' and 'Powerpoint'. The link above is a sound clip of the 'Microsoft XP' startup sound that is very nostalgic to listen to. Once comfortable with computers, I began to gravitate towards them to help with homework due to their practicality and competence.

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A Friday night tradition with my Mum and sister was going to the local 'Blockbuster' to choose a movie to rent for the evening. I watched half of the 'Harry Potter' movies by renting them from here. 'Blockbuster' soon went bust when I was around 12 years old, after failure to keep up with the new digital age and switch to becoming a streaming service, like their biggest competitor, 'Netflix'.

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When I was around 9 years old, I was gifted an 'I Pod touch' for Christmas. I remember feeling incredibly mature, since the 'I Pod' resembled the 'I Phone' that my Dad owned. Despite not being a phone, I was able to connect with my friends in a way I never had before. Apps such as 'KIK' enabled me to virtually message people that I was close to with the touch of my finger. Despite becoming more social with my friends online, the 'I Pod' arguably made me less social in face-to-face situations. On long journeys, instead of talking with my family as I once had, I tended to 'plug in' and listen to music, or play on mobile games that I had downloaded on the app store. The 'I Pod' made everything so much more simple, as it was effectively a 'game-boy', a messaging service, an encyclopedia and a calculator all in one small device.

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During my pre-teens, movie franchises such as 'the Hunger Games' and 'Twilight' became increasingly popular among my friendship group. We used to line up outside the cinema to watch the premier of each movie and also spent our money on merchandise. Looking back, it was my first introduction to consumer culture and the culture industry.

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Despite not buying an actual record, cassette or CD since creating a Spotify account, my music taste began to diversify and my knowledge of music grew. Streaming began to become the new norm, with most music and TV shows being consumed through these streaming services. Both are practical, better quality and easy to use which is possibly why they began to become more popular than more traditional means of listening to music and watching TV.

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As I continued to grow and change, so did the way in which I messaged my friends and family. Social media became a more popular way to contact people, (I even managed to get my part-time pub job by contacting the manager through their social media page). In addition, news channels also began to conquer social media, meaning that there were easier ways for me to expand my knowledge on politics and the world.

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Being able to video call my teachers and have lessons from home would have been unheard of a few years ago. But since the recent Covid-19 pandemic, the world had to adapt and now partaking in 'Zoom' lectures has become the new norm.