Media Consumption…As a Goal?
You are a measly serf living in feudal Europe who briskly walks to the gathering in the village's central dirt patch. Your heart is racing because tonight is THE night; you get to stand in a large crowd and strain your eyes and ears to experience the entertainment of medieval theatre! Oh, what a joyous day this is! Entertainment this good only comes by a few times a year!
Nowadays, the thought of only experiencing a form of entertainment every few months sounds like corporal punishment. In the digital age, media swirls around us in hundreds of different mediums, like a swarm of gnats above you on a hot summer’s day. Listening to music via headphones whilst scrolling through Twitter and waiting in a room where the news headlines are flashing across the screen is hardly a rare occurrence for the average civilian in Western society.
With all the media options available, many people have chosen the easy way out through short-form media. Short-form media is the product of society’s constant pressure to consume information every second of the day or else your time is being wasted. Short-form media gives people the opportunity to fulfill their entertainment or informational needs and desires within seconds, leaving them time for…. Wait. Hold on. Do you mean to tell me that getting my dopamine fix through an entertaining 20-second Tik Tok has left me craving for more? That after reading the news headlines on Twitter I now know everything going on in the world, yet could not sustain a conversation about a particular topic for longer than 30 seconds? And that in the blink of an eye, I have been on short-form media platforms for over 3 hours today? But! But! I only used it when I was on the toilet or in between classes or on my commute to work or when I was waiting for my meal to cook or when I needed to rest after a long day or… or… or….
As you can see, the accumulated time spent on short-form media was actually enough time to commit to a longer form of media which would leave you immensely more fulfilled. I’m not saying that you should bring a Stephen King novel to the public restroom every time you have to pee, but after consuming so much media mindlessly, you have taken away your brain’s ability to process. You feel exhausted and overstimulated by the end of the day — picking up a book or starting a movie sounds like a chore. Reading a full newspaper or even just a 10-minute article about an important event? Forget about it.
Leaving your brain idle time during mundane tasks such as a walk to class, waiting for your eggs to cook in the morning or the awkward time in-between scheduled events is actually extremely beneficial. It allows your brain to rest and then apply the necessary focus to what you want it to do.
Now I’m not going to sit on my high horse and tell you that we should all quit social media and go back to the “good ol days”. I am simply asking you to reframe the way you consume media. If you have been meaning to watch a movie for awhile now, don’t use short form entertainment that day and I assure you that the movie will feel infinitely more gratifying.
I think it is important in today’s landscape to set long-form media goals (how the plebeians would point and laugh at us now). But that is something I have been doing for the past year and it has made me feel more fulfilled in my entertainment. I implore all of you to do the same. (those of you who had the attention span to stay this long).