Content and personal responsibility

I caught myself scrolling the comments on an Instagram post about Meghan Markle's new Netflix show this week.

90% of them were vitriolic. She's a woman who provokes a very strong reaction amongst other women. And honestly, I was relishing it. The hate was absorbing. 

Some of the feedback I agreed with; there's a distinct lack of self-awareness of her financial privilege, as she encourages us all to collate a 'rainbow' of fresh berries for breakfast. 

But this kind of thread gets dark very quickly, into the territory of racism and death threats. I suddenly felt really ashamed of myself for spending minutes of my life reading bullying comments about a woman that I'll never meet, who has zero impact on my own life. 

It reminded me of an excerpt from Chris Hayes's book, The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became The World's Most Endangered Resource -

"If attention is the substance of life, then the question of what we pay attention to is the question of what our lives will be."

This is particularly pertinent when it comes to what content we're consuming - on podcasts, on social media, on news platforms. 

We have to take personal responsibility for what we're devoting our attention to. 

Hayes asks the tough question - 

"...you hear complaints about the gap between what we want to pay attention to, and what we end up paying attention to.

Everyone complains that they can't read long books anymore. But if we didn't have all the technologies and corporations vying for our attention, if our attention wasn't being commodified and extracted, what would we choose to pay attention to?"

Most of us would choose to give our attention to people, topics and activities that bring joy and hope.

But these choices take work. 

We have to unfollow accounts that give nastiness a regular platform. 

We have to actively choose to turn off a reality TV show that profits off insecurities.

We have to read books that broaden our perspective. 

We have to put our phones on aeroplane mode when we're surrounded by people we love, who deserve our full attention. 

I'm committing to being more proactive on this front. Maybe you'd like to join me?

NB xx