Isabella LopezAshley HumphriesENC 1101-0001

Even from a young age, I have always enjoyed watching television. When I was only two years old, my mother moved us to the United States from Colombia to start a new life. She didnt know a word of English so all the televisions in my house had subtitles on them because reading the words was easier for her than trying to understand the audio. I would always watch TV with my mom so I was pretty used to the subtitles. I think having the subtitles helped me get a better grasp on the English language when I started reading as well. To this day all the televisions still have subtitles and when watching a show online I almost always put the subtitles on. I think in a way it makes me feel connected to my mother. I remember sitting on the couch with the TV on and coloring for hours as a young child. I would always fall asleep with the TV on in the background, now it is almost impossible for me to fall asleep without a show or a movie on. I find having something on in the background is very soothing for me. When I would get home from school and I was doing homework I would go into the living room and turn the television on. I think this is why I cant do any schoolwork without a show or movie playing in the background. Silence makes it hard for me to focus as weird as that sounds. I think this might be because when I was a baby my mom would always take me to my grandmothers house, a house that was full of my aunts and uncles and their families at all times. The house was never quiet and I probably associated all the noise with a safe place where I felt comfortable. At the age of eight or nine I finally got a TV of my own in my room. It was a small but very thick black box; its screen couldnt have been more than 14 inches. I loved it. Since I was still pretty young I watched the same things as all of my friends, shows like Lizzie McGuire, Spongebob, Courage the Cowardly dog, Thats so Raven, and Unfabulous. Any shows on Disney Channel. Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon were right up my alley. As I grew older my taste in TV shows changed too. I began to watch shows like Full House, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, George Lopez. I think part of the reason I started watching these shows and shows like them, other than the fact that I was growing out of the other shows, was that my parents started extending my curfew or bed time and I got to watch shows that I couldnt before. Many of my friends from school didnt even have a bedtime so they got to watch whatever they wanted so when my bedtime got pushed back I felt really excited and I felt like I growing up a little bit. When I turned 12 my parents surprised me with my own laptop so I could work on school assignments. Ultimately it became just another way for me to watch television and movies. I could plug in headphones into my laptop and watch shows after my bedtime and my parents wouldnt know. This eventually turned into a bad habit I still havent kicked. My laptop also allowed me to watch my favorite television shows in places that I wouldnt be able to otherwise. I would go to Colombia every summer and I wouldnt really watch Colombian television so downloading shows on my laptop from iTunes and watching them in Colombia was really the only way I kept watching the shows I liked.I believe I was in middle school when I stumbled upon Netflix. Back then not many of my friends used Netflix because it was mostly used to order and rent television or movie discs. There were so many different shows and movies to choose from, so every week I would pick a couple of discs that would get sent to my home and then after watching them I would have to send them back. This worked better for me than renting and buying movies and television shows from itunes because Netflix ended up being cheaper. I liked this system of receiving dvds and sending them back a lot but Im not a very organized person so I was constantly losing or misplacing the discs and would end up having to pay full price for them. Im not sure if Netflix always had the watch now section where you could stream movies and television shows right from the website but I didnt notice it until about a year after becoming a member. This was when I really began becoming obsessed with Netflix. It was the easiest way to watch all kinds of different shows and movies. I liked it because I could start watching a show and I could watch one episode after the other instead of having to wait a week to see another episode like on regularly scheduled television. On top of being unorganized at times, Im also very impatient so having full seasons of shows readily available to watch didnt test my patience at all. Another feature about Netflix that I liked was the suggestions it would give based on my profile and on my watch history, it allowed me to discover new shows and movies that I never would have considered. I began watching documentaries and other shows that introduced me to new interests. For example, I began watching popular documentaries like Blackfish which made me feel strongly about wild animals in captivity for human entertainment. I gained insight and developed opinions on new topics.In high school I went back and forth between regular television and Netflix. Seeing as I had my own TV, I had more options on what to watch. I would usually have a couple of shows that I would follow and keep up with the current season on TV and then a couple of shows and movies that I could watch whenever I would choose to watch Netflix. On Television I would keep up with some shows like Shameless, Nurse Jackie, Vanderpump Rules, and most of the shows in the Real Housewives franchise. On Netflix I would watch shows that were a little older and no longer on the air or just exclusive to Netflix . Some of those shows included Gossip Girl, Dexter, Orange is the New Black, and Greys Anatomy. It was in high school that most of my friends really started using Netflix so it also became something I could share and experience with friends. I began realizing that my friends and I all had different taste in television shows, so when there was a show we all liked we would watch it together and talk about it, it was almost a form of bonding. Now that I am in college I appreciate Netflix more than ever. My roommate Becca ,a friend from back home, and I dont share the same taste in television at all, I prefer to watch something like The Office, she prefers to watch something like 19 Kids and Counting for hours. When we moved into our dorm we split up the list of items that needed to be bought for the room, part of her list was the television. It is technically her television since she paid for it so she has all control over what it plays. She also is the type to start a TV show from the beginning and watch all the episodes without any break or new show in between. This is not my style at all. I go through phases, I will start a show and if I love it I will watch it episode after episode until I either finish the show or get bored with it, whichever comes first. Becca is also the type of person who needs complete silence to study and cannot fall asleep with the TV on. As I mentioned earlier, Im exactly the opposite. For this reason Netflix and online shows and TV are the only thing I watch here at college. I can feel free to pop in my headphones and watch a couple of episodes of my current show whenever I want. Although I will say having my laptop perched on the side of my bed while I fall asleep has resulted in me pushing it off the bed and onto the floor many times. It is flexible and able to fit my new lifestyle as a college student. It also allows me to feel empowered and free. As a full time student I am still relying on my parents completely. They pay for everything and give me a monthly alloweance so I still have to abide by their rules even though I dont live with them anymore. Because of this, at times I still feel very dependent of them and like I dont have as much freedom and control of my life. Netflix is one of the few things I can control. Because of Netflix I am given the freedom and independence to watch whatever show I want, whenever I want, and honestly wherever I want because I use Netflix on all my devices. It is a small step in the direction of being officially on my own and in charge of my own life.