Living Life to the Fullest: Lessons From a Couch Potato

What I learned about living life to the fullest from the comfort of my couch.

If you have a Netflix account, or if you use YouTube, you may have noticed a recent change. Now, whenever you hover over a video or a title, a preview automatically starts to play. Love it or hate it, it's a brilliant marketing tactic. It sort of has the nostalgic appeal of channel surfing from back in the day, when I could be curious but non-committal until something truly appealing -- or appalling -- caught my attention.

Netflix found that when users interact with videos rather than still images, it cuts down on browsing time. The inertia of getting caught up in a wave of content actually makes you more likely to hit Play. And that's why I happen to like the new auto-play previews. I've been known to spend just as much time browsing for something to watch, as I spend actually watching it. It's a huge relief to find a cure for my decision paralysis, all thanks to the clever media executives who know that people tend to stick with whatever it is they're already watching rather than change the channel.

I've written about the power of inertia before, and how all it takes is a little push to set the wheels in motion. But beyond that, there's another lesson I learned from the comfort of my couch. The changes to Netflix and YouTube have forced me to broaden my selections and try out content I otherwise wouldn't have clicked on. And that's a really good thing.

The trend in technology is toward increasingly personalized content. My music streaming app knows exactly what I'm in the mood for, my news app keeps me up-to-date with the latest topics I'm interested in, and my social media feed only shows me the people and posts I want to see. But that tailor-fitted world is also a curse, and I think it's constraining our potential as individuals and driving us apart as a society.

There are so many movies, series, documentaries, and channels that I have discovered lately by being force-fed a quick preview. Yes, the selections were still personalized, but by diving in for a couple of seconds, I uncovered tons of new and interesting material that I would've otherwise overlooked as a still image. Imagine being exposed to just 15 minutes a day of something new that you aren't already drawn to. Would that inertia push you even farther toward uncovering new interests, learning new perspectives, or gaining knowledge about subjects you don't yet know that you're interested in? Maybe. It did for me.

And then there's the larger societal impacts of over-personalized media. My homogeneous Facebook feed only serves to reinforce the worldviews I already have, giving me a false sense of confidence that other people see the world through a similar lens. Oh, was that person's post offensive? Before you click Hide, Unfollow, or Block, remember that without other people to (respectfully) challenge our existing perspectives, all we're doing is looking into a mirror and preaching to the choir. Even worse, when like-minded individuals cluster together, this has the general effect of further polarizing social opinions and emboldening the group to think or act in greater extremes. It's basically a recipe for disaster, and unsurprisingly goes hand-in-hand with our current political climate.

So before you disable the auto-play feature on your Netflix account, and before you dismiss it as just another marketing ploy (which it is), I hope you reflect on these humble thoughts from a couch potato. We often think of technology and advancement in terms of the tools that help us live better, fuller, more efficient lives. But I think that we also live life to the fullest by remaining curious and open-minded about the people, opinions, and content that are hidden from our current view.

#growth #inspiration #media #society #openminded