I Cancelled TikTok, Netflix, & Hulu This Weekend

The Very High Cost of Chronic Distraction

I did a thing this weekend.

Sunday morning I poured a slow cup of coffee and picked up a book I’ve been intending to read since I heard the author’s interview on NPR.

Granted I had just done my first in-person art pop-up in 7+ years the day before and I was exhausted. Not that it wasn’t a good experience. It was. And I learned so much about what works for the season I am in and what does not.

But I was in that overtired fussy semi-agitated state that gives me sympathy for overstimulated 2-year-olds.

I turned on mindless background noise courtesy of a movie franchise I’ve seen 10x. But I couldn’t even settle down for that. My brain was too tired to turn off.

So I turned my TV to art mode and picked up Stolen Focus by Johann Hari instead.

I was so tired I couldn’t even be anxious about whether my words would behave themselves due to ongoing TBI impacts, or if reading triggered a panic attack, or if another migraine took over.

I wasn’t in a rush. I wasn’t speed reading for research. I wasn’t skimming for extraction, rather I slowly meandered for fascination alone.

I settled into the unhurried state of relishing words and phrases and letting my pencil have a conversation with the text through its underlining, note-taking, and mark-making in the margins.

I didn’t worry about how my reading speed was drastically reduced. I was finding myself in the pages through which I wandered. That somehow was enough.

Slowing my read, slowed my racing thoughts. My mind felt like it let out a longly-held sigh. I stopped feeling like my brain was trapped in an endless TikTok scroll, mindlessly swiping through YouTube, or numbing itself through Netflix.

{Ironically, this book was about all these things and more. It was about the forces that steal our ability to focus. It is a book I can’t recommend highly enough and I’m only in Chapter 3.}

Even after shutting down live tv over a year ago, the sheer volume of information that bombards me in my own home is astounding.

My brain was exhausted from the last few weeks prepping and doing the in-person pop-up, taxes, and 100 other things. But it was even more exhausted by the scroll that makes time evaporate—not in a good way.

Why did I rest so well in the middle of a war zone in Africa, but feel like my brain has become a war zone in the middle of one of the most affluent nations on earth?

Why was I so much more creative when my internet access was 1990s-style dial-up if it worked at all?

I’ve begun to realize that many of the things that my brain injury exacerbated by losing a great deal of its capacity to buffer and switch, filter, and force itself to pay attention were dynamics that were already eroding beneath the surface of my awareness.

In some incredibly ironic ways, my TBI simply pulled back the curtain and intensified things that were already starting to break apart.

There has been the increasing gnawing frustration of constantly being marketed to and sold to... And that it often works despite me.

The increasing frustration that how I feel about my day and work are more affected than I’d like by social media metrics I cannot control.

That my thoughts have started to come in 10-second-long automated sound bites.

That I was spending way too much time behind screens instead of out in my garden with my hands caked with soil.

That no matter how much I scrolled through Netflix or Hulu, nothing held my interest. It all just felt like some giant gelatinous remix of nothing meaningful.

So I did the only reasonable thing in such a situation.

I canceled it all.

Not because the monthly fees were too expensive (though I’m thrilled to no longer be paying so much to watch maybe 3 shows).

But because the very high cost of living chronically distracted was way too expensive.

No social media platform is worth growing your business on if it is at the expense of your happiness, well-being, or creativity.

Numbing isn’t the same thing as actually resting.

Scrolling is the opposite of savoring.

The more connected we are to our screens, the more disconnected we are from engaging the things that matter most, the things that make us truly human.

So I’m trying a little experiment of sorts. Feel free to try something like it that works for your situation.

• I’ve removed TikTok permanently from my phone. Not because of security concerns, but because I just don’t like the app or how it impacts me when I use it. We can say no to the things that don’t serve us well.

• I’ve also removed Twitter because to be fair I haven’t used it in years.

• 90% of the time, I only use Facebook, Instagram, and now YouTube for business. I talk to most of my friends on the phone, in texts, or we meet in person.

• I watch the 30-45 min evening news from CBS or NBC on YouTube. Our brains were not designed to be inundated 24/7 with news and noise the way we are. Information overload and compassion fatigue are deeply entwined.

• I start my mornings watering my garden and reading a chapter in whatever nonfiction book I’m reading, then putting my notes/thoughts in a notebook.

• I end my days with a cup of tea and a few chapters of a fiction book.

• I unplug my internet modem around 9 pm and don’t turn it back on until I’m headed into my office/studio to work.

• I canceled Netflix and Hulu, but I still have plenty of entertaining options to watch if I want on other services in limited amounts. I use YouTube as a search engine and occasionally for inspiring/educational videos/art content.

• Instead of numbing when tired, I’m reading. Or napping. Or wandering outdoors. Or researching. Or just going to bed early. Or embracing boredom staring out my window knowing our brains MUST have boredom in order to be creative.

• 98% of the notifications on my devices are permanently off. The other 2% are wrangled into different pre-determined focus modes.

• I carry a book and a notebook/pencil now almost everywhere and choose that as much as I can over my phone.

There is such wonder and beauty unfolding around us in the simplest moments that go unseen and unrecognized because our devices have hijacked our attention and trapped us on the surface of things.

The real creative challenge that faces us at this moment is how do we harness the positive power of the ever-growing cadre of tech tools at our disposal without becoming trapped by them.

I don’t pretend to have the answers— even for myself. But I’m on a journey to discover what works for me.

Your turn:

• How do you restore when you are exhausted?

• What social platforms are stealing more than they are giving?

• How might you play with adding buffers in your day to give you a break from all the tech overload and screen time? Even if it is just 5 minutes to breathe deeply instead of furiously checking your socials.