Media Consumption

In my overall quest to minimize distractions in my life either by limiting the time I spend on social media or watching TV. Lately, I have noticed that I probably have been over consuming in other areas, specifically Podcasts, Books (both Audio and Paperbacks) and online news articles and blogs.

TV isn’t my problem

During my recent travels, I thought back to when I used to travel and I would get back to the hotel and turn on the TV to find random shows to waste the rest of the night away. I have found when traveling now, once I get back to the hotel in the evening I don’t even think about turning the TV on. To be fair, that is something I don’t do at home either but for some reason, I notice it more in Hotels as they always have this big screen right in front of the bed that you can see from all places of the room.

The hotel I was at last time was a Suite which had two big-screen TVs that were so close together that using the remote on the one in front of the bed would also turn on the one above the desk. Note there wasn’t even a wall between these two rooms. Not to mention, some hotels I have stayed at over the past year even have my name on it asking me to log into all my other accounts almost like it is calling me 🙂

So what do I do instead of watching TV? Typically that is when I would read the latest Blog posts of people I regularly follow, listen to a Podcast or an Audiobook, or sometimes I will just lay in bed or sit on the couch and actually read a book. I typically don’t “read” books as often as I am listening to books but I still do find time to just sit and read books from time to time.

What types of Media do you Consume

All of this other media consumption that I would typically say is better than watching hours of TV or spending hours browsing social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) I am now wondering if it should be cut back on as well. I have realized that I sometimes get so consumed in them that before I know it I have accomplished nothing else on my long list of things I would like to accomplish like writing (on this blog is a good point), creating something new, running (yes I am weird like that), or even calling a friend.

Everyone is always saying we spend so much time on Social Media and watching TV shows or movies online. However, how much time do we spend consuming other media and is that starting to move towards an area of concern? I could easily make the argument that it is better than other things but it also is taking away from me doing something else I enjoy. I don’t have a good answer on that one but since it has crossed my mind I am definitely going to look closer and possibly keep track of how much time in a given week I spend on these other forms of information consumption.

Now it is your turn, do you think you over consume other types of media?

In full disclosure, this post has been written since April and I keep coming back to it as I am not sure if I was ready to hit publish. I have added some parts here and there over the months leading up to when I actually hit publish but I finally decided to just hit publish and I am sure I will have more on this topic at a later point in time.