Let’s Talk About It: Tasty Videos

I have a big [read: not that big] announcement to make: It has been 27 days since I last watched a Tasty Video on my phone. You may be thinking: “Jack, are you talking about those 75 second videos of people cooking food on Facebook? How is this an issue? You really are weird – I’m gonna stop reading your blog!” Well there internet stranger, to answer your questions: yes and I’ll tell you more about that in a second and I’m sorry that you have already made that rash decision, this is only my second post!!!!

For all of you readers who are not food obsessed social media fanatics, let me give you a classic example with the magic of WordPress:

If this was your first exposure, I definitely recommend watching a few more. Common themes in these videos: pleasant music, generally do-able recipes (besides the occasional blow torch), and the trendy, indulgent ingredients.

Now that you get the gist, let me lay the scene of my pre-new year morning routine:

1. Rolling over off of my back and onto my side
2. Picking up my phone while trying to keep it plugged into the wall (in order to conserve my battery life, of course)
3. Scrolling through Facebook
4. Once a Tasty video came up on my feed, I would watch the video
5. Thanks to autoplay on the Facebook app (with only 3-4 seconds until the next video played), I would watch around 15+ videos, depending on how much motivation I had to get out of bed.
6. Finally get motivated, stand up, and start my day.

Now back to reality. This habit (OBVIOUSLY) could be a lot worse, but it was stopping me from being more productive on a daily basis and was something that I wanted to turn around this new year.

In order to combat this, I took drastic measures that ended up having rippling effects throughout my social media usage as a whole. I deleted my Facebook mobile app. Yep, you heard it here first: No more scrolling through ‘the book’ while waiting for CVS prescriptions, no more morning birthday notifications, no Facebook live capabilities (not like I ever was brave enough to do that).

I definitely am on social media less now especially in the mornings, but with Facebook gone, I have found new time suckers to fill the quiet times of my days including a newfound love for Instagram (which I will talk about at length in a later post) and Snapchat.

The good news is that instead of just watching recipes for videos that I will likely never make, I can spend that time connecting with people on Snapchat, a social platform that for me encourages a lot more interaction and engagement than Facebook. Hey readers: What do you think about that? Comment below? I think that would be a good idea!

So, I know… this was kind of an anti-climactic post because I just pulled the plug on my problem that created a void that was filled with more technology. It’s not like I’ve been meditating instead of watching Tasty videos (Which I should do!!) However, it was still a small victory that I wanted to share with whoever stumbles upon this blog.