Moderating media consumption

This #thankyouthursday, I am grateful for moderating media consumption.

The other day a dear friend recommended I read Digital Minimalism, a suggestion she made after I expressed my increasing discomfort with Instagram. Already I am careful not to consume too much “news” (often more like chatter and opinion and speculation), a lasting effect of when I was very pregnant during the onset of the pandemic and determined to keep my cortisol levels low.

I don’t want to live with my head in the sand, but nor do I need to be bombarded by every detail of every alarming event. Which is why I am grateful for moderating my media consumption.

Because I moderate my media consumption, this week I didn’t hear about the horror of the Texas elementary school shooting until the morning after it happened, and I still don’t know many details.

Honestly, just knowing it happened is enough—and by “enough” I mean “extremely distressing.”

My imagination is fully capable of supplying all the stimulation my anxious mind can handle, so, especially when traumatic events are making headlines, I do my best to stay in my own head (which of course has its own hazards, but I’m better at controlling my internal environment than anything external).

Even so, there is no escaping horror and heartbreak. Those experiences and feelings, I’ve reluctantly come to accept, are simply part of being human. Just like being part of the United States means you’re more likely to be affected by gun violence than if you lived pretty much anywhere else.

I mean, the first time I reeled from news of a mass shooting was as a teenager in 1999, and two decades later the U.S. citizenry and in particular the people we’ve elected to political office have done effectively nothing to curb such acts of terrorism.

I understand odds are low that our lawmakers will enact legislation to protect Americans from life-threatening realities like systemic racism and underregulated access to guns and overregulated access to women’s healthcare. And for me, seeing an onslaught of social media posts about these issues does plenty to increase my anxiety and despair but little to motivate positive action.

So I moderate my media consumption. I take in just enough to stay informed, and then I retreat offline to process my feelings and prepare my response.

Because I definitely need to respond. I understand horrible things will keep happening; that’s the world we’ve created. But I also believe there is a lot we can change, provided we get/stay grounded and work together. And the actions we most need to take aren’t going to happen online.

Love > fear,
Christina

p.s. If you want to tell me what offline actions you’re taking, or want to hear about mine, please hit reply and let’s connect—and maybe even collaborate?