On Media Consumption
When intention disappears, what is left over?
The 8AM wakeup looks much different today from even a decade ago. An alarm clock is implemented into nearly every smart device, which can take the shape of a phone, the bed you're sleeping in, or the house you occupy. One is now surrounded by technology and media from the moment they emerge from unconsciousness to the time they’re granted sweet release from the torturous lifestyle of the 21st century citizen: stuffed yet always consuming. You go to your fridge for a snack you aren’t hungry for, only for your attention to be stolen by the screen LG has somehow managed to squeeze between you and your indulgence. Today, even distraction requires distraction to be realized. Multi-tasking is the new default, with efficiency seemingly having a direct correlation with how many screens one has in front of them at once. Similarly, the most pleasing viewing experience for the modern consumer isn’t a thoughtful encounter with an intentionally chosen piece of media, but rather, an indulgent feast on any and all one can manage to sink their teeth, eyes, and ears into at once. Endless consumption is promoted by the very structure of our most prevalent media platforms. Netflix allows for what feels like all of ten seconds to sit with the three hour original you just finished before the next begins without question. One does not even have to put in the effort to stop and start, to choose what to watch. Viewers are instead handfed content and guided by the infinite possibilities of content, only to immediately forget their main course. The modern Sysiphus is not unhappy, but drawn into a lifeless existence by the infinite doom scroll, a state of being that actively hampers critical thought and originality through sheer force. One does not need to imagine this Sysiphus happy, for that is his greatest addiction.
Just because I wrote a paragraph decrying the overconsumption of media in the modern day by no means suggests that I am exempt from this 21st century plague on the mind. Oftentimes, I wind down by turning on my Nintendo switch, putting in some headphones, and indulging in a game of Hades with a podcast droning in the background, reduced to white noise. It’s nearly impossible to avoid multiple stimuli activating one’s neurons in modern life, with this act of “multi-viewing” becoming all the more common as the default form of media consumption. This has a number of harmful and quite depressing implications for the appreciation of media on an artistic level. After all, am I really getting the most out of the highly detailed, intricately designed, focused gameplay and narrative experience that is Hades if I’m laughing at Blank Check at the same time? I’m sorry, but if you’re playing Candy Crush on your phone while watching a movie, then you’re not really watching a movie. The beauty of art is intentionality as much as it is interpretation. An artist with an idea and the talent to realize it has taken the time to share their mind with the world, and unless designed to be a mere distraction or consumed half-heartedly, then there is no way that literally interrupting your line of sight with with yet another piece of technology, spewing more media into one’s retina’s, can aid in one’s understanding of an artwork’s intentional intricacies.
That is, unless your artist is a robot. One that mashes together other inspired ideas to create something “original,” a term tech bros high on the A.I. drug think is the only requirement for great, emotive art. Just as the intention behind consumption is disappearing, so it is in the very creation of art itself. Truly, the modern viewer is trapped in a cycle of mindless time wasting. In viewing, one’s agency is stripped by the lull of distracting media designed without meaning, thereby limiting the ability to critically think about what one is even consuming. Art has always had an element of entertainment, with film snobs often placing movies on a range of pretentious arthouse to entertaining blockbusters with no “artistic merit.” A simplification to be sure, but even this reductive scale is the Davinci Code equivalent in an age where one can’t even sit through typing a few sentences without Subway Surfers occupying the background space in one’s head that used to be reserved for critical thought. Instead, I scroll to distract, I play to disengage, I consume to forget. Not only does one strip the artistic merit of an art from this multi-viewing, but they are actively restraining their ability to think deeply about the work because they are too busy being distracted. “X Ending, Explained!” Youtube channels with millions of subscribers support the existence of thoughtless consumers, bird feeding the answers that could, and should, be found independently through one’s own experience with art. We are hurtling towards dangerous simplicity, a future where critical thought is replaced by someone regurgitating meaning to you. What is a person if their opinions are replaced by others? If their original thoughts are hampered by doubling down on media? If their very lives are recurring cycles of banal consumption that limits originality and thought instead of promoting it? What is a person if they no longer are capable of acting, or even thinking, originally, independently, or for themselves?
These are the questions I’ve been dealing with over the past few weeks as I’ve started to scrutinize my media consumption habits. Recently, I have found myself desperately trying to take back control of my own mind from the endless hordes of content. With a Youtube watch later playlist of over 500 video’s, a gaming backlog and movie watchlist in the hundreds, and a “to-be-read” list spanning centuries, I can safely say that I have a lot of media to catch up on. However, these numbers aren’t daunting to me. Instead, they're exciting! I love consuming media, it’s quite literally a core pillar of my central passion that is filmmaking. To me, media and art can be equivalent, there’s no reason a three hour Youtube video that spent months to years in production cannot have the same artistic merit as a film simply because of the medium. I have seen feature length projects on social media that certainly qualifies as content I view as worthwhile, and thus, meaningful to engage with. Outside of pure entertainment/admiration for the craft, I have dozens to hundreds of videos saved on content and topics I want to learn more about. This isn’t “content,” but a recorded college lecture, an informational tutorial from a professional in their field, a master teaching a student. Meaning, I have established pieces of art and powerful knowledge both easily accessible to me at any and all times, pieces of media I genuinely want to learn from, or at the very least, have a meaningful experience with. I feel anxiety regarding my desire to ensure I am getting the most out of these pieces, as well as avoiding my biggest fear: the forgetting curve. The only way one’s life of endless consumption can be more meaningless is if they forget the hollow content they spend all their time gorging on. When this is the case, one becomes a caved version of themselves, not acting out of intuition or genuine desire, but instead, the need for distraction. There is no active, original, creative thought about the material that serves to restrict. Opinion and critical processing are tossed for easily accessible, immediate answers. A life is made immobile by being stuck in the streaming service blackhole, ten seconds until your next show. In this way, viewers are now trapped in a perfectly comfortable prison sentence designed to lull them into sustained mindlessness and forgetting.
The desire to remember the content I actually want to engage with, the effort to have original thoughts about work I encounter, to think critically and expand upon that media have all led me to being more intentional with my media consumption. I want a reason to be watching, not just indulging because it’s a thing to do to fill my limited time on this earth. I started a commonplace book alongside a notion template where I can add notes for any and all pieces of media I consume. You know, for insurance. However, with two systems came a distinction between the media I consumed and the form of mindful engagement that comes with that act. First, there is the academic content, tutorials, or long form analysis that requires purposeful note taking to remember. On the other side of the spectrum are the pieces of art that demand personal reflection. Not formed from the intention of teaching or from the desire to critique, but exploration and creativity. From here, I then realized that this was the same scale the aforementioned pretentious film student uses to distinguish Marvel movies from the next Scorsese flick, which revealed to me an entire wealth of media between the two apparently polar opposites. This no man’s land of content is where I find myself lost, desperately fighting for survival of the mind amongst the entertainment industry’s drawn weapons.
I once found myself paralyzed by choice, but now I am paralyzed by fear. Fear of forgetting. Fear of missing out on an enjoyable experience with art I at some point wanted to fully embrace. Fear of wasting time, of erasing myself with the assimilation into another’s opinions and views, of eliminating originality and replacing it with pre-determined opinions and thoughts. I’m afraid of consuming in the way I used to, which in some ways, is most definitely a positive. I have remembered much more of the content I’ve been hoping for, and I feel as though the video essays or lectures I engage with are not only helpful and entertaining, but intentionally chosen, and thus, have some form of amplified significance for myself. As previously stated, art is all the more powerful when intention is included in the recipe, both on the baker’s and tasters end. The art and the artist thus exist in a symbiotic relationship. One promises to provide, the other to process. When this relationship becomes unbalanced, we have the unattentive viewer incapable of thinking about the hours, days, months, maybe years of dedicated craftsmanship put into a work. Or, we have the soulless artist, the corporate provider of meaningless experience after time waster for the stuffed viewer coerced into having an appetite.
Within the range between these two binaries, existing on the same spectrum of entertainment vs “art,” or notetaking vs personal reflection, is what I find to be a confusing mess of media. Specifically, this analogy exists in reference to Youtube, but can be easily applied to other streaming services where world travel documentaries are placed alongside Dora the Explorer, which sits comfortably between academic exploration and, let’s just say, an hour long serialized drama. With all of my attempts at intentionality, I have started to consume less than I once did out of the fear and uncertainty that comes with this media. Is this three hour retrospective on one of my favorite games a worthwhile analysis I want to remember for its critical examination of art I love, as well as the potential to learn critical analysis techniques and game design philosophies along the way? Or, is it a person’s subjective opinion that hardly matters to remember, but can be entertaining in the moment? Or is it neither, existing with the intention of being nothing more than just that jumbled white noise?
I want to watch PatricianTV’s eight hour analysis of Starfield, but I’ve been too afraid because I don’t have the time to sit down and take notes on all eight hours of analysis. Then the questions arise. Do I even want to? Is this something I need to be taking notes on? What type of analysis is this? Is this worth remembering, either for academic or entertainment purposes, or is it just distracting? On Youtube, there is a damning definition problem. PatricianTV’s Starfield analysis is a deep dive into one of the year’s most controversial games, which clearly took months of work and an expansive knowledge of game design to put together. However, this intentionally crafted experience appeared on my recommended page next to “12 hours of x game’s facts to fall asleep to.” Content I wanted to enjoy for its contribution to the Starfield discourse, and game analysis as a whole, exists next to word salad literally meant to put one to sleep. Never having previously known this brand of content even existed, I turned to my equivalent of an eight hour podcast and felt that same fear. Now, I was wondering if I could even pay attention long enough to take notes on the Starfield breakdown, and if I didn’t and simply fell victim to the forgetting curve, if this piece of media I once wanted to have a meaningful experience with is nothing more than words to sleep to. It was at this discovery that I realized the danger of long form and short form content now essentially serving the same purpose of distraction.
There is an illusion of productivity that comes with finishing such a daunting video, but I doubt there is anything “productive” about falling asleep to an analytical essay a passionate creator spent potentially months creating. Just as short form content allows for the doom scroll to trap us into cycles of mindless, comfortable entertainment, long form content has displayed its own potential to endlessly distract. Whereas short form media allows for immediate activation of stimuli, long form is just as interruptive of originality in the way it literally fills the space one has in their minds that acts as the origin point for critical thought. Silence is non-existent, instead replaced by endless content that brings the same beautiful, numbing distraction of short form content, but instead extended to hours. Truly, one could not have a single original thought for an entire day if they only played and mindlessly consumed a handful of the videos in my watch later. To me, that does not sound like living. I am afraid of actualizing that zombified existence.
It may sound like I am overthinking this threat. After all, how harmful is a cheeky Youtube video now and then? I don’t believe one needs to take notes or reflect on every piece of media they consume, but that is only with the caveat that one is doing more than just consuming. There’s a place for turn-your-brain-off content. I love a good time waster, but when entertainment becomes overly intoxicating to the point of addiction, that is where I personally draw the line. Once I reach the point where I am consuming so much with such little effort that I may as well not be watching at all, I take a step back and consider, how hungry am I? And for what? What am I really getting out of this media? If the answer is nothing but time wasted, energy spent or thoughts blocked, I take that as a sign. This is where media consumption becomes granular and increasingly personal. Where once I was stuck between my own definitions of media worth consuming and how to do so, I now realize that stagnation came from a fear that doesn’t exist in reality. No one will judge me for mindlessly consuming content, and yet, I still feel a twinge of guilt when watching a video I’ve spent weeks waiting to enjoy, only to finish it without even being in the same room it's playing, listening to words I immediately forget. That feeling isn’t guilt from external pressures, but genuine sadness at realizing I’ve hampered my own experience with content I value, whether that be mindless entertainment, informational tutorials, or anything in between.
Meaning, I now realize to consume mindfully is not as easy as carefully interacting with every piece of media on the same level in the same way, but a constant examination of what I value, find interest in, why, and how to best engage with that material. I don’t want to become a robot that only processes art as information to annotate, but I don’t want to be a zombie being spoonfed media I could have enjoyed twice as much with a bit of thought and reflection. Essentially, I’ve realized for my personal content consumption, every piece of media is a case by case basis. No overarching rules, just a question when the hunger arises: what will satiate me, and how can I best facilitate that? Whether that be through taking notes, making more specialized playlists for “background content” and “active content,” keeping a commonplace book, or just happily and intentionally accepting x video is one I’m likely to forget, your media deserves your intentional attention. So, consume mindfully, be intentional, and stay hungry.