3 Types of Digital Consumption

About 3 months ago, I reviewed my digital consumption and eliminated almost all of it.¹

Since then, I consumed very little media. A handful of videos, and posts. Some news articles. It happened (shrugs).

It felt good. Great even. Stress was down, focus seemed to be higher. I had more time to socialise with people that I cared about. I came up with a few ideas for native macOS/iOS apps and almost done with my very first one - Bukku. A small tool that allows you to control all your browser windows, tabs and history items in one place.

However, in the past couple of weeks (while I am waiting for Apple to finally approve me for Apple Developer Program), somehow I found myself consuming more. I tried to analyse this and find out what type of media and why is getting my attention.

This led me to identify and categorise digital consumption into 3 main types, each with their qualities and prevention strategies:

1. Passive

You have no choice what gets in front of your eyes. Instagram, TikTok, News all fall into this category. It starts with an itch to fill time with something and you do it without thinking.

Qualities:

• Easy to fall into
• Hard to get out
• Feeling of heavy-headedness almost guaranteed

Prevention:

• Should be avoided as much as possible. Delete apps if possible, stop visiting news sites.

2. Pseudo-Active

You are actively looking something up driven by curiosity. It may even seem like a useful/entertaining search. This is an unimportant matter, however you may sink hours in its research if we are not careful. Things like movie trivia, links in your group chats, that make you curious, random questions that pop into your head.

All of these can trigger a lengthy research potentially with no conclusion and no end in sight.

Qualities:

• Happens sporadically
• Easy to fall into
• Can give an illusion of “learning/researching” even more than 1. Passive
• If not careful, can turn into Passive consumption

Prevention:

• Before jumping in - stop and ask yourself “Is this important right now?”. Maybe the important thing now is just to rest and do nothing.

3. Active

You made a choice in advance about when, what and for how long you are going to consume something. It doesn’t matter what it is - it can be TikTok too. What matters - you made the decision, it wasn’t made for you.

Qualities:

• Time-bound
• Pre-selected
• Impossible to “fall into”
• Easier to get out

Action:

• Plan in advance
• Set time boundaries
• Commit to these boundaries

Which Media Consumption to Engage In

Ideally, Active, of course. But it is mostly impossible. The formula that I have arrived at is this:

Minimise Passive/Pseudo-Passive consumption, regulate and monitor Active consumption. If in doubt (and if permissible) - do nothing, rest.

As seen above - Active consumption can be Passive, which is completely fine, as long as you don’t fall into it for longer than initially planned. Admittedly, I think, this is what got me.

guess at some point (I couldn’t pin point the exact one) I probably gave in to consuming a bit more of news. The next day, I did it again. Then I started to check my Telegram more often and suddenly I was engaged far more in chat groups and it snowballed into other types of media pretty quickly.

Two weeks passed like this with heavy-headedness steadily increasing. One day I distinctly felt it so distinctly, I decided to drop everything, and go for long 2h walk with no devices.

Since then, I am trimming down the consumption again. But the paradox is that now I feel that I need to spend willpower again to control my impulses to check various media.

To combat this impulse I thought to write more, I went to a cafe I haven’t visited in a while, turned on my “blog” mode² and wrote 3 posts.³

✍🏻

Notes