Machiavelli once said “Men desire novelty to such an extent that those who are doing well wish for a change as much as those who are doing badly.”
How true the latter sentiment remains, I’m not sure. The Green brothers talk often about the billionaires and government officials of today’s world who desire power for power’s sake, who endlessly chase authority without ever stopping to consider why they need more power, or what (good) they might use it for. I can’t imagine, in our increasingly self-aggrandising moment, many would give up their fortunes or good luck in place of a struggle, would reposition themselves lower on the social ladder.
But I think it does say something interesting about our pursuit of change. Especially in our overstimulating world of likes and swipes, we’re driven to desire change, newness. New information, new narratives and stories and ideas, with as little a lull as possible. Why read a book, which might take twenty hours, when you could watch a movie?
Movies became too long; we wanted information in thirty minutes, not two hours. YouTube videos took off. Then we wanted information in one minute, not thirty. Then half a minute. Then a fifteen-second clip. And now we have summarising AI which delivers three hours worth of research, of the world’s knowledge and ideas, in as little time as it takes to physically load the words of ChatGPT’s response on the screen.
The tools are great. The access to global information and countless resources in seconds is nothing short of magic, and propels us further and faster than ever into the Information Age, into the rapid technological progress and development which continues to mark our period as distinct from those before. But it’s the machines and tools which are built to handle the speed of this advancement, not us. We’re still relatively similar in a biochemical, brain sense to that which came before us, that which did not have to contend with the possibility that a TikTok video of theirs might go viral, that they might get ‘cancelled’, that they might accidentally not end their Twitch stream and say something which gets them ‘banned’ from the platform.
Add up these unfamiliar stimuli, which seem to be growing in number by the week, and you begin to understand that apocryphal piece of research which claims that a teenager’s anxiety levels today match those of a mental institution’s patient in the 1980s. And that’s only going back forty years.
Imagine being a farmer-peasant in 1820s Germany. How much new information would you be exposed to on a daily, even weekly basis? Very little outside of your immediate situation and surroundings. Perhaps you might hear through the grapevine of national concerns, war efforts and ministerial changes. Certainly nothing, or absurdly little, of global affairs.
How much fiction would you consume? How often would you engage with narrative?
More importantly: How grateful would you be for the opportunity to read something different, to dive into a new story?
This is the central issue with our overconsumption of media and information
— the (lack of) scarcity issue. You have access, with some online tinkering, to practically all fiction ever created. Websites exist which allow you to stream, in ever-improving resolution, almost any movie ever produced. If you look in the right places, you can download an e-book version of almost all books ever published. And yet, despite this unfathomably rich library of stories, we meanderingly swipe along rows of ‘We Think You’ll Like’ and ‘Based on Your Previous Download’, evaluating these works based off a cover or a ten-second preview.
I’m not saying we should attempt to consume everything; even if you spent every single minute of an 80-year life watching movies, never sleeping or eating or resting, you would watch about 352,640 movies, which makes up about 44% of movies ever created. We should never strive for exhaustion; skipping past recommendations and scrolling on streaming apps is not necessarily a demonstration of ungratefulness for the availability of media.
But we should cherish what we do consume more. Too often we get bored of reading a book and ask ChatGPT for a summary. We disregard the movie in favour of reading a detailed review, or watching clips of it through TikTok. We consume more than ever, but less and less often do we consume media in
the right way, in a way which gives credit and respect to the toil and method of the author, actor, or director.
Be selective. Consume less and appreciate more. You’re never going to watch or read everything anyway, so stop trying. Stick with a challenging read or a boring movie, see it through to the end and then complain, in your review, that it was too self-indulgent and lacked narrative propulsion. But just finish it. The ‘continue watching’ tab is a graveyard of all the films you gave up on. If you’re doing it right, it shouldn’t be there. One at a time.
If we re-pedestalize media, rather than continuing to think of it as a mere sedative to cure our boredom, we can beat novelty. We can be grateful once again for the stories we do have, the stories which have always been available but have never been so undervalued.
“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.” — Susan Sontag.
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