serious question: how do millennials have so much time to consume internet content?

I have the same question.. it seems to me that millennials are always knowledgeable about what happened last night with a famous youtuber or instagram person and it is not clear to me how they are able to absorb so much content.

Pretty broad strokes, but wasting time isnt a new thing. 20-25 years ago, people would come home and watch TV for 3-4 hours a night. Many young people now don’t have cable and instead spend much of that time with online content.

They spend 4 hours on the internet after work instead of watching tv like all the old people. No one under the age of 40 watches basic cable type of shows anymore.

Cmdjsjssns wrote:

Pretty broad strokes, but wasting time isnt a new thing. 20-25 years ago, people would come home and watch TV for 3-4 hours a night. Many young people now don’t have cable and instead spend much of that time with online content.

This is the whole story. The way adults spend their time has changed through the years. Instead of drinking themselves into a stupor while listening to the radio, they started watching TV until 2am. Now we waste our lives scrolling though Instagram feeds of hot girls/guys while watching videos on YouTube.

Exactly and now you dont have to participate in a hobby to know things about it. Just watch youtube and you are now a qualified expert. People overall prefer sedentary activities regardless of generation.

As a millenial myself, I cant be on instagram for more than 10 minutes Im more of the outdoors type. My girlfriend on the other hand does the facebook, instagram, amazon triad the whole day while laying in bed in her PJs. Id rather be outside, then again I was that kid who came home from school with dirt from my shoes to the top of my head.

This is a massive problem for all generations, but much worse for millennials because they happened to be born in this new media heavy world. It’s almost impossible for them to revert back to what most of experienced growing up. With that said, they have a much better ability to multi task when consuming media than other generations.

Youngsters simply have more time between school and sleep to keep up with the fast changes. However, FOMO is a much stronger force when you can be plugged in 24/7 so no question millennials are losing sleep. In fact, I will speculate this has added to the social pressures of teenagers since more and more of their lives are lived online. You don’t want to miss out on all the social media things your friends are participating in. Think about bullying even, you simply can’t get away today. If someone picks on you at school, it continues online after school. If you’re the cool kid, there is pressure to keep up your coolness online all the time.

The situation is pretty fked up and unhealthy IMO. It’s not just millennials that are engaging less in person though, it’s everyone. Our smart phones are unfortunately now one-stop shops for everything in life so we are simply bound to spend more time fixed to it.

My advice:

1. to consume more sports, look for extended highlights after the event is done. I do this for everything from NFL to Golf to running. You don’t need to watch anything love anymore, you’ll be watching commercials 50% of the time anyway.

2. Podcasts and audiobooks - you can listen to these while running. There are speech speed controls that you can regulate to consume content much faster. Start with 1.25x and work your way to 2x. I can consume a book in less than one week on my runs now.

3. If you’re an adult you don’t need social media accounts unless you have lots of family members with accounts and you want to just tune in to see pictures sometimes.

4. Consolidate your online interactions. For example, if you have a big circle of friends suggest a single WhattsApp group where you all can chat simultaneously. I Have family outside the US so I am thankful for something like this. And yes from there you can easily dial someone and have conversations.

5. Set boundaries. Not much will change in 5min, 30min, 3hrs. You don’t need to check in every 10seconds. Especially at night, have a rule for not touching your devices after a certain time. Parents need to do this for their kids today, an almost impossible task but is critical. If you want to see your kids grow into functioning adults set boundaries, but you need to follow them as well as the example speaks louder than your authority.

A lot of them still live w/ their parents so they have less responsibilities. They spend money saved on stuff to create more free time. They Uber around instead of waiting for public transportation. Order in all the time. Living for the moment.

Yes, but we FaceTime. I've seen people who will be on the same facetime call for 12 hours.

Hardloper wrote:

KudzuRunner wrote:

In the age before social media and texting, people--we--used to call each other and have long talks. Do young people still do that?

I didn't think so.

Most millennials are terrified of phone calls and will put off adult responsibilities to avoid them

It's not just millenials who are terrified of phone calls.

Answer - You’re a dork. Who cares.

Truth is Here wrote:

According to Neilson data, the average Boomer watches upwards of SIX hours of television per day. Monkey see, monkey do.

+1

Guilty as charged, your Lordship.

I think whats missing from this conversation is quality vs quantity.

WHAT are they consuming? How do they decide what is relevant to take in and what to ignore. Equally important, are they able to consume things beyond just a quick skimming of facts and a headline? How deeply do they know real issues?

Im constantly amazed at how little millennials know about really important things, but are all tuned into garbage news.

Do they take in world events? National and world politics? How much of the latest in science, technology the environment etc are they reading?

Seems to me they are always surfing thru Insta , FB and Twitter feeds but is there any VALUE to what they are reading?

Lots of people talk about the ease of multi-tasking. How well can you do any one thing when you multitask? Can you focus on deeper issues and news stories when you multitask?

These are the really important things to wonder about. Not just how much time is spent online.