Ask Lemmy

26664 readers

1670 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world

candyman337@lemmy.world

TheSaneWriter@lemm.ee

TheSaneWriter@lemmy.thesanewriter.com

candyman337@sh.itjust.works

Asudox@lemmy.world

can@lemmy.ca

lemmy_bot@lemmy.world

beefbaby182@lemmy.world

AsudoxDev@programming.dev

119

What can a person replace tv shows, movies, and other zombie-brain entertainment with? How can attention span be improved? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by pineapplefriedrice@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

50 comments fedilink hide all child comments

As part of my endless and possibly futile quest to be a less pathetic version of myself, I've embarked on a campaign to stop watching TV and movies. For me it's low hanging fruit - some people really love movies, but I honestly can't remember the last time I watched something that I truly enjoyed. It's just something to fill dead time when I'm too tired to think. It BOTHERS me that I've spent so many hours mindlessly watching shows that I didn't even like. I feel like I'm wasting my life every time I watch TV.

I've tried reading and podcasts with limited success. They're good to a point, but the type of content I like is usually either pretty heavy or requires some thought (philosophy, human rights, law, etc. are my areas of interest), and I'm increasingly having trouble with my attention span too.

I already cancelled Netflix a long time ago, but I just never found a good replacement for it. Usually I find myself doomscrolling or watching the same few movies I already own or playing chess on my phone. I decided when I started that I'd let myself finish watching the shows I already followed, but just wouldn't expose myself to any new ones. Now one of the last two shows that I had been following has been cancelled (which is understandable, the last season was AWFUL) and the other won't have a new season for a while because of the strike (go strikers), so I'd really like to make TV and movies a non-factor in my life.

So I'm looking for advice here. What other activities are less of a waste of valuable time but not mentally tasking? Has anyone had success improving their attention span? I'd love to become a bookworm but goddamn is it ever hard to keep my ass on a chair long enough to get through more than two chapters. I don't even know why my attention span is so bad - I actually used to tear through book and had no issue concentrating until about 5-10 years ago.

Any ideas?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Kethal@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

People have given lots of advice about picking up hobbies which I agree with. One thing I'd add is that you can make a list of movies and shows that you're genuinely interested in and try to stick with those. It gives you an outlet when you don't want to work on a hobby, it's more rewarding than passively consuming the crap that Netflix churns out, and when you're mostly watching high quality stuff, you might find the mass produced stuff becomes boring enough to you that you'll be driven to work on a hobby instead.