This morning Vince left to go to town and he left the TV on. I sat down for a minute to wait for the washer to finish so I could take the close out to the line and there was a story on about “Doomscrolling” and “Doomsurfing” and it was about the bad news that is constantly in our face, whether it’s TV news, Facebook “news”, Twitter . . whatever we use the most. The article was saying that the more you search for “election polls” or “pandemic” (and those are just two examples but it’s really any news that we are constantly thinking abot), the more those types of articles are going to show up in your feed. The recommendation was to look for happy things and then those things will start showing up in your feed. His recommendation was to look for recipes, or stories about pet adoptions. I might disagree with those two because finding recipes has blown our diets and stories about pet adoptions makes me want 100 new pets! But, I see where he was going.
I’m definitely not a trained counselor or therapist but I can tell you from experience, that this is true. After September 11, I kept the news on almost 24/7 because I was afraid I’d miss something tragic. Then I realized . . why would I want to see it happen in real time? I don’t believe we should bury our heads in the sand. We do need to be aware of what’s going on, especially in our own areas but I’ve even had to stop watching youtube videos because whatever I watch is what I think about most of the day and it does affect us.
There was a time, and it probably started when Chad was living at home and I wanted to be available 24/7 if he called, that I allowed my cell phone to become an appendage. Now I rarely know where my phone is and if it weren’t for driving from here to MO by myself often, I probably wouldn’t even keep it. We never take our phones to bed. My thinking is that if any of my family should need me . . in Missouri or Louisiana, I’m not going to start driving in the middle of the night so I might as well get a good night’s sleep – not knowing if there’s an issue til I can start driving. That’s how I missed knowing Addie was born til the next morning!
We allow “things” in our life that end up controlling us. Those things are often good . . cell phones are good . . until we can’t sit down and have dinner with our family without checking our phone; or we can’t drive and devote our attention to the road because we can’t put the phone down.
I’m not a fan of the phone or the TV so it’s easy to complain about them but it can be other things. When I’m with Addie, often after she goes to bed, I feel like I should have put my knitting down and done more with her. I don’t want her to remember that all I did was knit.
It’s all about finding balance. Cell phones are fine so long as they don’t control our lives; TV is fine so long as I’m not having to wait for a commercial to tell Vince something; or if we turn it on to watch something and turn it off when our show is over. Knitting isn’t bad, so long as that’s not ALL I’m doing. There are so many things in our lives now – most are good in moderation. I need to work on moderating a few things in my life.
Sara Fridley says
So true – it’s easy to become fixated on those topics. I’ve always been kind of a news junkie, but have had to turn it off lately because there isn’t enough good news. I normally plug my phone in at night in the kitchen, where I could hear it in an emergency if needed. But last night we had waves of bad storms all night long – including tornado warnings for our county. We can’t hear the sirens in town from our neighborhood, but my phone goes off with the weather alerts. Obviously – it didn’t help me sleep very well, but it did help me feel a little safer.
Judy Laquidara says
We can’t hear the sirens here either (I don’t even know if there are sirens in town here) but the weather alert would wake us and then, there’s not really any place to go so I figured I’d rather sleep through the storms and hope for the best.
Tee says
My facebook feed is all about flowers and gardening. It is so refreshing to go there once I have been looking at the news sites. I even unfollowed my best friend, who’s feed was all politics and bad news. I couldn’t take it anymore!
Judy Laquidara says
Mine is gardening and recipes and like you, I’ve unfollowed a few, and even unfriended a few, because I simply don’t want to see it on my Facebook. It’s their right to post it and I don’t blame them if that’s what they enjoy seeing but I just can’t watch it and going to FB to see fun things .. seeing all that frustrates the heck out of me.
Carol says
My DIL told me about a visit her mother made to see them when the grandkids were very young, but all she did was “sit in the chair and knit.” I spend a lot of time with them, but it’s time focused on them, their interests and activities, not my interests. There is more than enough time for my own interests when I am not with them. As a child, that is the memory I have of my grandmother, focusing on me, not herself. I loved spending time with her, of course.
Susan Nixon says
I don’t watch TV any more. I get more news than I ever wanted, just listening to my friends. I’m with you. I don’t want to be so attached to anything that I can’t put it down to listen to a family member for a while.
Sandi B says
I’ve removed ALL social media from my phone. It had become an addiction. And, the past four months, especially, had raised my stress and anxiety levels to points that were seriously unhealthy. There was an IMMEDIATE lowering of those.
I’ve also turned off the TV.
I’m enjoying the peace. And spending more time in prayer.