My friend said he only watches shows with his phone face down now

We were talking about Severance last night, and he mentioned he started putting his phone on the couch cushion, screen down, before hitting play. He said, 'If I even see a text preview, I'm out of the show for five minutes trying to figure out if I need to answer it.' That hit different because I realized I do the exact same thing. I'll pause a tense scene in something like The Bear to check a notification that's just a spam email. It made me rethink calling any show 'binge worthy' if I'm not even giving it my full attention for 22 minutes. I tried his method with Shogun this weekend, and I actually followed the political plots way better. It's a simple fix, but it feels like you're actually watching the thing you picked. Anyone else have a dumb little rule like this to stop from getting pulled out of a show?

2 comments

2 Comments

julia_burns91mo ago

Strong disagree. Multitasking is how I survive the slow parts.

jamieperez1mo ago

Wait, have we all just gotten so used to being constantly distracted that we forgot what it feels like to actually focus on one thing at a time? @julia_burns9 I get why you'd say that, but I think this whole "multitasking is survival" thing is exactly why nobody finishes anything anymore. It's like we're all just jumping between five half-finished tasks and calling it productive. I've started noticing how much faster I get stuff done when I just do one thing at a time, even if it feels boring for a minute. The slow parts are supposed to be slow, that's how your brain processes what you're doing.