7 Reasons We Are Consuming Content The Wrong Way

We seek to escape from reality

You are reading this article because you consume a lot of content, and you are guilty of it. I am too.

There are days on end when I binge Netflix or mindlessly scroll through my Twitter feed. Irrespective of the medium, we all are consuming a lot more content than we could process. A Neilsen survey shows 20% of millennials are consuming 20+ hours of content per week.

Apart from the quantity of content we consume, it is also important to understand the quality of our intake. An Indonesian YouTuber shot a video doing nothing — yes, absolutely nothing. He stared into the camera for two straight hours, and his video went viral, gaining him 3 million views.

Wow, that sounds crazy, but it isn’t. Entertainment sells more than education, it always has. What is befuddling is that — we sometimes don’t realize how it affects us.

It causes ‘perceived social isolation’ — that is, people who spend a lot of time on social media often perceive themselves to be more socially isolated than they are in reality. We are constantly comparing ourselves with people in our network (friends, family, and influencers) making us feel bad about ourselves.

It makes us envious of others and can even cause depression. A study conducted to find the connection between depression and Facebook, it was found that envy is the single biggest factor distancing people from real lives. When envy is being controlled for, the use of Facebook isn’t depressing. It still causes mental stress — and stress is an underlying cause for many lifestyle diseases.

Social media has created jealous behavior over illusions. Sadly, some are envious over things, relationships, and lifestyles that don’t exist.

Credit — Ary Matah on Pinterest

Here are the top 7 reasons we are consuming content the wrong way.

We want to know it all

We have FOMO. We probably couldn’t care less about Trump or the pandemic or some celebrity gossip.

We want to check our news feed, our stories, our email box (despite knowing it is just garbage), and our chat messages. We cannot stop.

We get easily distracted

We cannot resist checking our phones. Mentally, we are not at peace. We feel this constant urge to check all the stories in our feed. But seldom do we realize that this habit makes it incredibly difficult to focus and complete the task at hand.

Incessant browsing with no goal in mind is like hammering all over the wall without ever hitting the nail. When this habit goes unchecked and unmonitored, it can easily cost you hours of productive time.

We are lonely

We are lonelier than ever before. According to a CBS survey, Gen Z (people born after 1997) is the loneliest generation. Nearly 79% of the Gen Z respondents reported feeling lonely as compared to only 50% of the Gen X respondents.

Without even knowing it, some of us might currently be undergoing some mental health issues — we just don’t know it yet. We crave attention — a limited resource lately. We can’t live without screens, even for a single day. Unfortunately, we have become more vulnerable than we ever were.

With technology and social media at our disposal, our entire lives are on display. We are so tightly interwoven into this net that we cannot fathom a world without it — at least not in our lives.

We crave attention

A ‘like’, ‘comment’, or ‘clap’ gives us that instant rush of dopamine. It’s like a dose of caffeine that we crave every day. It keeps us engaged to the platform and we keep going back to experience that instant gratification. What we don’t realize is the cost we are paying for this?

The time that we can spend in creating something, pursuing a hobby, or starting a side-hustle. Most of us already know this and are aware of the opportunity cost. Yet, we ignore it in the pursuit of that dopamine. I have fallen in that trap several times. And it takes more than self-discipline to get out of it. It is about finding and understanding your purpose — what drives that behavior without much effort.

We are busy

No, we think we are busy. That’s how we have conditioned our minds. In reality, however, we just don’t prioritize well. Our priorities are messed up. Sometimes we bite more than we can chew. Then we get exhausted and switch to YouTube or Netflix for some mindless entertainment.

We indulge ourselves to escape from reality. The problem isn’t that we want to relax and unwind. We’ve earned it, but watching more content isn’t helping us unwind. It uses the same mental bandwidth which is required for an important assignment. So, instead of calming down, it actually works you up, leaving you more exhausted than before.

We are seeking escape

Except that consuming more content only ties us down further.

You have a bad day at the office; you come home, turn on your laptop, and scroll through your social media feed thinking it will help you escape misery. But all you see is how awesome everyone else’s life is? That makes you even more miserable. And it has nothing to do with your inner insecurities. It is more to do with the way social media is engineered and how you feel. If you are in a sunny place, these things won’t bother as much.

We don’t control what we watch

We have spoken about everything that we can control — our behavior, attitude, and mindfulness. But there are other factors which aren’t in our control leading us to consume content.

We are consuming what we have been shown — the algorithms determine what we should or shouldn’t see.

While it is based on your watch history, interests, and subscriptions, there is a conviction bias in the content being shown to you. With entertainment it is fine, however, for news and information, it can prove dangerous.

If you google coffee is good for you, you’ll be shown articles that outline the benefits of coffee and if you are anti coffee, you will find plenty of those articles too. You will find what you are looking for.

Similarly, it can be a dangerous ploy in politics. If I am inclined towards left ideologies, it will show me more opinion pieces, ideas, and thoughts leaning towards the left. But wouldn’t that completely alienate me from the discussions in the ‘right’ ideological space?

Social media is based on revenue-optimizing algorithms — unfortunately, it is filtered, biased, and toxic.

Be mindful of ‘how’ and ‘why’ you consume

Your life need not be swayed by anything else. You can pivot it in the direction you want. You probably already know what you want — you need to focus on the ‘how’ part and you will get there.

I also spend an awful lot of time on social media. However, I periodically disengage. The first time I toyed to go off social media for a few months, it was hard. But now, it isn’t. It helps me to clear my mind. I understand the benefits and I am naturally driven by that.

Once you know when to withdraw, you have won half the battle. The other half is based on your willpower. It’s not difficult. All you need to do is see why. When you believe in something, it would sub-consciously drive your behavior.