Thoughts on Instant Gratification

Some years ago, I settled into a habit. One that I’m not totally proud of and one that every so often, I try to rid myself of.

I fall asleep to Netflix.

I know, I know. It probably ranks number 1 on many lists of what not to do when it comes to sleep hygiene. “Come on, Hilary. Read something, instead.” I always tell myself.

The thing is, I love to read. Over the summer, when I have a little more time, I fall into a pattern of reading regularly. I’m reminded of why I love it.

But Netflix feels easier. Maybe it even is easier. Reading requires imagination. It requires that we paint a picture of the characters, the setting, and the scenes in our head. It’s slower, and in an age of instant gratification, it seems only natural that we’re drawn to the show with images, plot twists, story arcs, and a nicely packaged ending all within 25 minutes rather than the book that takes a week to finish. It’s effortless.

My struggle with reading before bed has caused me to think of the many ways in which instant gratification seeps into our lives. Even in Beaver Creek, where slow, intentional living seems unavoidable, I am inundated with opportunities for instant gratification.

The other day, while on Netflix, I noticed a new category – “Short clips. Big laughs.” The category boasts fast laughs. Upon further examination, I realized this category is structured similarly to TikTok and Instagram. Its videos are full screen format and, as the name suggests, they’re short!

This week, Instagram CEO, Adam Mosseri, announced that the social media platform would continue to push reel content. Reels, of course, are based on the TikTok video format and this announcement caused considerable backlash online. Posts pleading that Instagram return to a photo sharing application have circulated the platform in recent days, and I have to say, they leave me feeling conflicted.

Social media, and in particular the reel and short video format, is easily digestible and the sheer volume of content that exists targets our reward system. Dopamine creates a feedback loop that leads social media users to consume more, and more, and more online. I’d argue that most of us have mindlessly opened our phones and started scrolling before we’re actually aware of what we’re doing at least once (probably more like once an hour!).

As a “creator” (I really hate that word, but I’ll use it here anyway), I can certainly speak to the benefit of video content. A reel I created last year pushed my Instagram account out of relative obscurity. Video content has provided me with a platform I’ve used to share experiences and information and to connect with the broader global community. It’s opened up doors for me I didn’t know existed and it’s changed many aspects of my life.

I suppose what I find confusing and conflicting about all this is the pattern of instant gratification that we can and are almost bound to slip into. The choice of slow and intentional living feels beyond grasp at times. It feels like sand slipping through my fingers, or the last hints of summer vanishing on a decidedly colourful and crisp fall day.

I’m going to go on a bit of a tangent about food, but trust me, it relates. I think in many ways the instant gratification we derive from social media and streaming platforms resembles what’s happened in the western world’s relationship with food. Collectively, we’ve gone from growing our own food to struggling to decipher many grocery product labels. The connection we used to have to the land and to the very things we need in order to survive is more and more elusive.

Like many, in the spring of 2020, I tried my hand at baking sourdough bread and cinnamon buns. I tried cutting my own hair, and I started a garden. Covid lockdowns meant that we’d lost access to some of the things we’d taken for granted. Sure, I didn’t really have access to those things anyway, here in remote Yukon, but the unprecedented times thrust that lack of access into prominence.

The process of gardening, perhaps a little like reading, is slow. It’s peaceful, meditative, and rewarding, but the reward takes time. The benefit of the slowness is that it provides time to foster a connection. A connection to the land and to my food in a way that I hadn’t had before. Now, three years into the gardening process, I’m still very much a novice, but I’ve watched the kale and lettuce and spinach we eat daily grow from seed. When I pluck it from the garden and bring it to the kitchen, I know how long it’s taken and the tending that’s been necessary to get it to that ready-to-eat state. In the grocery store I used to pick up a bag of “ready-to-eat” lettuces, the umpteen steps it had previously taken to come from somewhere like, oh I don’t know, California? Mexico? to get to me, invisible. The instant gratification I felt was based on the fallacy of not recognizing or being connected with food production.

So back to the reading and Netflix conundrum. It’s complicated. Just like social media is not all bad, not all aspects of large-scale food production are bad, and so too, not all aspects of Netflix, or Disney+ (etc., etc.) are bad. What I do know is that the more I move away from the mechanisms of instant gratification, the better I feel. It feels good to read before bed. Great to get my hands in the garden. And fantastic to be grounded in my natural surroundings.