Constantly ‘binge-watching’ while ‘over-eating on a bag of chips and to it all, scrolling through the internet or social media!
This has become the way of our lives, yes. the quarantine pushed us here, but weren’t we already heading this way?
Each time we desperately feel the need to cling to a funny show or a video to forget our reality, yet feel such emptiness for a moment when the video ends. The funny part is that with millions of media content pushed down our throats, with little to no breaks between any, do we even realize what we are doing?
We know that these aspects make us temporarily happy or uplift our mood. But, why have we failed to realize that, they also drastically can make us sad, angry, and lonely for seemingly no reason? Almost, imbibing the emotions that are portrayed in the characters we see. I feel like at one time, with limited choice, we had more control over what we consume. However now, not only are choosing the first few things are displayed to us but also are allowing ourselves to fall into a hole of despair.
For sure, many people may prefer the dark genre, but honestly, how many of us really want to only restrict ourselves to this genre especially during such a tough time as it is?
When are we going to look at entertainment as another form of substance that has to be analyzed before just ‘popping it’. The effects and impact may not be measurable for us but are we really going to turn a blind eye to the fact that it does impact us? We talk about media having control over what we view, then the change begins from us. More importantly, from choices, we make for our happiness and our mental health. There are no fixes from reality, no escapes- what we can do is try to take it one step at a time to truly heal.
Let us be more aware of our choices and let us try to take the method of prevention rather than letting everything contribute to damaging our mental health and paying for it in the long run. We cannot always wait for phenomena to unfold and scientists to declare something to be a concern before we call that ourselves. When are we going to take control of our own lives? When are we going to take it one step at a time to be not ruled by the economic gains of businesses? When are we going to put our sanity above all?
Let us not fool ourselves anymore.