Often I come across new terms used online that baffle me. Recently, I came across the term “analog doomscrolling” and while listening to a nice young man on YouTube explain it and talk about the benefits, I felt a strong wave of nostalgia. I also chuckled a little bit, because I used to be a master of “analog doomscrolling.”
“Analog doomscrolling,” is replacing time spent doomscrolling online with reading books, working on puzzles, and doing crafts to replace time spent online doomscrolling. This You Tuber demonstrated browsing through various books and reading small bits and he recommended having an assortment of books nearby, including reference books, like dictionaries & encyclopedias, where he can pull out a book and read a few minutes at a time.
My childhood was filled with many hours spent reading our World Book Encyclopedia set and the large dictionary that came with that set. I added many other books to my “analog doomscrolling” habit, like books of quotes, books on poetry, magazines, browsing through cookbooks and hours paging through my oldest sister’s set of interior decorating books. I also borrowed my great-grandmother’s old Workbasket magazines, and loved finding new needlework and craft ideas. At the kitchen table, I read every side of cereal boxes, all the print on any food container, from the pancake syrup bottle to the strawberry jam, and if my father finished reading the newspaper, I was quick to grab that too and start reading. Words have always fascinated me.
The negatives about digital use caught most of us by surprise, but I’m hopeful we’ll learn to find ways to navigate through this. Articles about research into how screen time can wreck our attention span and negatively impact our lives abound, but rather than throw the baby out with the bath water, I think we should find ways to mitigate the negatives, while embracing the positives. Fast and easy access to information offers many benefits. I find it very helpful to look at how-to videos for many household repair tasks, find new recipes, pay bills and handle banking, and of course, shop. I even found the internet very useful for finding information about the negatives of internet use.
I have been working on my bad habit of wasting time doomscrolling with limited success, because another bad habit – online shopping – rears it’s head, whenever, I embark on new hobbies. Many people, myself included, waste money shopping online for things we probably never would have considered purchasing shopping in physical stores and it’s easy to convince yourself that you “need” a lot of extra things to start new hobbies, try new recipes, or just about anything else we do, because we see so many new options online, especially on social media.
In the digital age, almost every new interest comes with a few online purchases. because as soon as I watch a few YouTube videos on a new craft or needlework project, the next thing I know is I am purchasing some new “must have” tools and/or supplies. Before the internet, I would have just used what I had and jumped in. And once I make that first purchase, well, often I end up buying more accessories. Then once I’ve got all this new stuff piled up, of course, I absolutely need some new storage containers to organize it all.
When I started working on adult coloring early this year, I promised myself that this time I wasn’t going to overdo the buying too much crap, but I failed and have 18 adult coloring books (more than I will likely ever use), several sets of colored pencils, markers and assorted supplies. Overall, luckily I live pretty simply and am working to impose more discipline on my online shopping, like trying to stick to a 24-hour rule, where if I see something I want to buy, I wait 24 hours before purchasing. Often that bit of time leads to me deciding not to buy the item.
There’s actually a term for this consumption behavior called the Diderot effect. The term describes a pattern of behavior where one new purchase can lead to dissatisfaction with other possessions and lead to a spiral of new purchases. Diderot, a French philosopher, received a gift of a beautiful scarlet robe, which led to him buying many new purchases to be good enough to go with that fancy robe. From Wikipedia:
“I was absolute master of my old dressing gown”, Diderot writes, “but I have become a slave to my new one … Beware of the contamination of sudden wealth. The poor man may take his ease without thinking of appearances, but the rich man is always under a strain”
Poor Diderot, ended up in serious debt and I don’t want to end up like him. The interesting thing about watching this nice young man on YouTube, was Diderot’s effect kicked in. He had a book shelf next to him where he had placed some books specifically for “analog doomscrolling,” but I started thinking that what I need (want) is a book cart on wheels. I thought a book cart with wheels would be so handy to stack books on and roll around the house to wherever I choose to spend time “analog doomscrolling.” I already have a small, three-tiered metal cart on wheels that is very useful for my crafting supplies, so now I will likely purchase a book cart in the near future too.
Yes, I know this book cart idea is totally ridiculous and frivolous, so I am expanding my 24-hour online shopping rule to thinking about a book cart purchase until, at least, next month.
Small steps…
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