Be mindful about your consumption
2023-08-24
At this point, we can pretty much call it public knowledge that we live in a system, which is focused on consumption over everything else. Regardless of a (commercial) sector being about material gods like electronics, clothing etc. or immaterial ones like skills, experiences and mindset, almost every company/platform tries to maximize your consumption, which indeed has huge influences on society and every one of us. So let's take a look at where this comes form, talk about some of these effects and look at how to be mindful about your own consumption...
In the old days, probably the best symbol of headless consumption was the TV, as it combines a very low effort, but addicting activity (watching a movie is way less demanding for the brain than reading a book, but frankly stimulates our reward center more) with a 'one size fits all' approach to content distribution (due to the limited amount of channels and their given programs) and established the idea of creating content only to drive sales by ads ( of cause excluding the state-owned channels, which follow their very own agenda). However, nowadays many activities have shifted to the digital space, which offers many more abilities for the distributors, has led to an exponential growth in personalized content and made the whole scenario even worse.
Personally, I believe many of the problems we as a society face today to be grounded in this omnipresent and addictive promotion of consumption over production , even though it certainly isn't the single source of any of them. As an example lets look at productivity, where you'll firstly notice that we currently have the highest productivity as a species ever measured in history. But it doesn't look so bright anymore, if you take a closer look and figure out that this mostly comes down to better education and just more people working than ever before. When you actually focus on the productivity of a single person (especially in their free time), it's not unlikely to notice that given the excellent tools available it is miserably low and that the interest of learning something new is also rather non-existent. This is largely a consequence of constant distractions like push notifications and the emphasis of self-portrayal on social media we have to deal with in this digital world. If nobody shows weakness there and seems to be perfect, it's just human to transfer these expectations to the real world, which more often than not leads to huge success pressure and the feeling of being alone or even inadequate. Given these circumstances, you're likely to just give up and escape into the exact make-believe world that started this whole vicious circle (a.k.a. the internet) instead of being happy with the way your are and slowly, but steadily working on yourself to become the best version possible.
Another really controversial effect of the constant availability to consume some sort of media is the suppression of boredom . This might sound amazing at first, but actually is rather terrible, because boredom is THE most creative time of your day and THE state of mind to reflect on your recent decisions - two of the skills most in need today. So, if you should ever feel stressed out and need to regain some energy, maybe go for a walk completely disconnected without listing to music all the time or even the chance of reacting to incoming messages. It truly is surprising how much this single decision can change and also one reason, why the pomodoro technique with its 25 minute work and 5 minute relax periods is so productive - you just have to give your brain the peace it needs from time to time.
Last but certainly not least, I want to say a word about consumption in the sence of buying new things. Advertisements are incredibly effective at making us believe we need this new phone or these sneakers to be cool, get acknowledged by strangers and ultimately live a good life, but that just isn't true! You don't need every new shiny item , the devices you are using don't define you as a person and they certainly won't help you with social contacts. If something works fine for you, that's great - no need to change anything, regardless of what others say. Try to focus on reality and having a good time instead wasting your time with thoughts about your next big purchase. Try to enjoy experiences over things, as they are more important for happiness. And try to enjoy not owning too expensive things, since it frees you from the fear of losing or damaging them....