Yes watching birds of prey doing literally anything is one of life's best pleasures!
And wrt 3, I've been thinking of that sort of thing too recently. A book can suck you in an be un-put-downable, and (in my case bc I don't game) random internet stuff can also suck you in and be un-put-downable, but they don't really feel at all the same. For me, I feel like reading a book (or watching a good show or movie) "gives", while certain kinds of social media are more prone to "taking away". I'll feel compelled to finish a chapter and compelled to read through my tumblr dash but finishing the chapter feels good and scrolling has lately just made me anxious. I think this might be partly because books (and shows and movies and other things that are for telling stories) have a continuous arc that Goes Somewhere and has a definite end point, while internet stuff is fragmented (either posts read one after another don't connect to each other, or connected posts are scattered around and you have to piece the context together yourself) and ever-regenerating, so it doesn't have a coherent arc or end point, and you can't really "finish" reading it in the same way. Reading a book is more relaxing and gives me a sense of satisfaction and interesting things to think about. Social media lately has made me anxious, and while sometimes it too gives me interesting things to think about, there's a lot of worthless fluff too. (I also am more likely to use social media more if I am already anxious or otherwise in a bad mood, so that probably affects things too.) And of course there's that books won't look at you or talk back to you, and other people, including on the internet, do.
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Date: 2019-01-18 12:59 am (UTC)And wrt 3, I've been thinking of that sort of thing too recently. A book can suck you in an be un-put-downable, and (in my case bc I don't game) random internet stuff can also suck you in and be un-put-downable, but they don't really feel at all the same. For me, I feel like reading a book (or watching a good show or movie) "gives", while certain kinds of social media are more prone to "taking away". I'll feel compelled to finish a chapter and compelled to read through my tumblr dash but finishing the chapter feels good and scrolling has lately just made me anxious. I think this might be partly because books (and shows and movies and other things that are for telling stories) have a continuous arc that Goes Somewhere and has a definite end point, while internet stuff is fragmented (either posts read one after another don't connect to each other, or connected posts are scattered around and you have to piece the context together yourself) and ever-regenerating, so it doesn't have a coherent arc or end point, and you can't really "finish" reading it in the same way. Reading a book is more relaxing and gives me a sense of satisfaction and interesting things to think about. Social media lately has made me anxious, and while sometimes it too gives me interesting things to think about, there's a lot of worthless fluff too. (I also am more likely to use social media more if I am already anxious or otherwise in a bad mood, so that probably affects things too.) And of course there's that books won't look at you or talk back to you, and other people, including on the internet, do.