Consensual Content Consumption

27 Nov, 2025

A typical Sunday evening conversation in this household goes like so:

F: Do you want to watch a movie tonight? How about [action-packed war movie], lots of explosions, very dramatic?

Me: A movie sounds great! But let’s skip the war one, I don’t need to be stressed out right before bed. What about [indie drama that’s a little too real]??

F: Ugh, no, these [indie dramas that are a little too real] always leave me emotionally wrecked. I don't have the mindspace for that right now. How about something uplifting?

We'll then proceed to spend 15 to 30 minutes watching various film trailers until we land on something we both feel like, or abandon the pursuit altogether - he will get on his computer and watch someone play Age of Empires on YouTube, and I will settle on a nature documentary or a romcom that I can watch with half my brain shut off.

This little ritual, I posit, speaks to a larger truth about media consumption: we choose what we watch based on how we want to feel. Whether we seek escapism, inspiration, or light entertainment, we make intentional decisions about our emotional experience. Why then, do we forgo this careful discernment when scrolling through social media?

It is news to no one that The Algorithm is optimized to maximize time-spent-on-app - which translates directly to emotional ~~engagement~~ manipulation. How often did it come to pass, that I wanted to kill time while waiting for a tram and opened up Shorts only to be left feeling inadequate about my own life because someone I don't even follow - but whom The Algorithm offered up - was posting about an ~ aesthetic ~ apartment or wardrobe? How many times did I open up Instagram wanting to look at memes but ended up reeling (heh) from watching a live-streamed war crime instead? How often did I think I was watching a day-in-the-life vlog only to realize halfway through that it’s actually a slick, 10-minute ad for an air-fryer I didn't even know I wanted? In none of these interactions did I consent to the emotional extremes I felt subjected to.

The emotional highs and lows of social media are not accidental. Now there is GenAI added to the mix. It’s bad enough I have to pick through my feelings after seeing some random video, but now I have to figure out if that heroic dog saving a baby from a bear is even real. (Spoiler: it wasn’t.)

It took me a while to get there, but eventually I caught on to the emotional disregulation matching up with my social media consumption. Rage, sadness, envy, random bursts of motivation: every scroll seemed to trigger a new emotional state I didn’t ask for. The world is dumpster-fire enough, I do not need emotional whiplash to accompany my day and increase shareholder value for Instagram executives on top of that, thank you. At some point I asked myself, if I hate my mindless use of this technology, AND I despise the technocrats owning these platforms, why the hell was I still on them? So I left.

I don't view this as a moral or intellectual victory, or make any tall claims about my attention span being back to what it was when I was 13 years old and could read a 1000 page novel in 3 sittings. This is simply my minuscule, personal attempt at raging against the machine and trying, trying to assert my own will to the way I live my life.

There are some obvious downsides to this decision. Social isolation is no small part. Instead of experiencing collective cultural moments first hand online, I now get informed about them though Guardian opinion pieces written by boomers. I miss life updates from friends I only talk to occasionally but still care about. I don't know an alternative way to keep up with cool events happening in my city - other than trusting that my friends do and take me with them.

My time on the internet is being spent on the Indie Web lately. I am loving the return to reading blogs, I have signed up to a few newsletters from writers I enjoy, and even pay for one. In the tram or when I am waiting somewhere or for something, I day-dream. Sometimes I allow myself to simply be bored, something I have not felt since the early 2000s. Now and then, I will have a particularly exhausting day, emotionally or at work, and I will give in, re-install the apps and scroll for an hour until my brain feels sufficiently numb. At the very least, I consented to that.

On the up side, I am buying fewer things, because I am not bombarded with targeted ads constantly manufacturing consumer desire.

Turns out, I can live without the air fryer. I don’t need to upgrade my wardrobe, the sound system we’ve got works fine. The robot vacuum, though? Life-changing. Thanks for that one, Mark.

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