Digital Gluttony

A while back I came across the post I’m an addict and I wondered if I wrote it.

I like watching videos. A lot in fact. Today, I’ve spent over 6 hours watching youtube videos, an hour of reading through comments on hacker news (Reading long articles is tough. Sifting through comments on the other hand - pretty comfortable.), 3 hours of sleep and poof, the day is gone.

Self trust, memory and the invincible autopilot: I can’t trust myself. Cause: I’m simply incapable of doing things I’ve set out to do. Simple things. Everything is difficult. I overpromise and not deliver. Writing this post is very difficult in fact. I would switch to comforting myself by watching youtube if not for cold turkey

There’s so much content I want to consume. YouTube videos, movies, TV shows, podcasts, video games, books and blogs—the whole lot. Thing is, it just isn’t possible to go through all that content. When I was an unemployed bum I would easily spend days lying on my bed just going through everything, at the expense of doing anything else. Hours gone without the possibility of catching up.

Likewise with social media, I can spend hours doomscrolling, reading though thousands on comments on discussions about political events hapenning in places nowhere near me. Though I sometimes learn, I usually find nothing interesting or find my way sucked up in heated discussions. When I used my social media I would comment, but as I attempted to use it less, I doomscrolled worse which didn’t improve much.

I reached a point where I couldn’t tolerate being in silent without some sort of content going through, except the shower. Waking up with headphones in, driving with a podcast playing, walking with music on, using the toilet with your phone, filling up down time with social media, consuming more media once I get home right until bed. Even during my reflection time, I need to hear some 2.5x YouTube video¹ playing.

Given all of this tempting content, it’s hard to find time to do the things that would benefit me. Though there are many things I want to work on, writing and programming are things I want to do. Thing is that while doing those, it quickly gets either hard or boring so I crave stimiulation to get through.

Trying to get in all of this content just isn’t sustainable. I can try and use up my weekends to do it, but imagine using all the free time you have and sacrificing it to the digital gods.

Clearly, something has to change since I can’t keep doing this. It doesn’t help that I have far less free time now than when I did when I was chronically unemployed. To fix this, I’ve decided to wake up very early so I can do my self-improvement tasks, put my time into work and use the time I get home to throw at content. Not sure what I’ll do on weekends, but I hope it won’t just be throwing it at content. I don’t like waking up at 4:30, but how else will I meet my goals if I don’t make time for them? Ideally I’d work in the evening but I’ll be spent by then and the time will be fragmented anyway.

Didn’t really say much about gluttony in this post, but I hope you get what I’m saying.

Update 19 July 2022

I was going through old drafts and I’ve talked about this before. For one, it isn’t just a me problem—it happens to a lot of young people, based on a couple of videos out there.

Also,

Honestly, I need to slow down. I broke my headphones and my new pair will be a while. Can I live like this?

I’m not going to take note here. If something noteworthy jumps out I’ll add it but not.

Guess I couldn’t stand the quiet. I didn’t write much afterwards though.