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

submitted 1 year ago by pineapplefriedrice to c/asklemmy

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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?

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[–] Kethal 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.