MamaMia
by Catie Powers October 18, 2025
Years ago, a university professor told me that Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never movie was less impactful than the television I watched it on. I almost dropped out in protest.
OK fine, I’m butchering his actual (much smarter) argument, which was that the way we consume content says more about us than the content itself.
And he was right.
Let’s use my TikTok account as an example. Sure, videos of tiny food being cooked in tiny kitchens bring me joy. But if you put me in front of an hour-long, unedited, video of a tiny kitchen, I wouldn’t watch it.
Why? Because, thanks to TikTok, the way I digest content has been rewired.
Unlike my high-school days, where I would watch YouTube Vlogs back-to-back, I now favour short videos, infinite scrolling, and a double-speed option. In other words, my attention span is ruined and I crave immediate gratification.
It’s the same with streaming sites. These days, it’s rare that I have to wait a week for an episode of a show to drop; I can just binge the whole season in one go. Another example is food delivery services; I can get a takeaway without having to leave the comfort of my house.
Thanks to technology, everything is at my fingertips, and my life is defined by convenience: the convenience of speeding up videos; the convenience of on-demand shows: the convenience of food dropped to my door.
It’s a privileged position to be in.
And it’s one that leaves me with a worrying question … Is the convenience of technology making me lose my capacity for discomfort?
I knew there was only one person to ask … a university professor (and no, not the one who dissed Justin Bieber).
‘That is identifiably a problem.’
Digital Communication PhD researcher at the University of Sydney, Dr Timothy Koskie, explained our pursuit of convenience is fundamentally about resource management and the trade-offs we’re willing to make.
“When we talk about issues of convenience, we’re often talking about a kind of efficiency,” Koskie told Mamamia.
“Time is a resource that we have a limited amount of. So when people are turning to these tools, it’s often as a way to free up resources in other parts of their lives, ostensibly.
“Sometimes it’s not about being fast or about being low effort, but there are other things that you’re bypassing as a way of getting that convenience.”
Whether this is a “problem”, he said, “comes down to the individual and how important efficiency is for you”.
But, there is “another layer” that complicates things; oftentimes, we are engaging in technological convenience without even realising.
“These organisations, the platform owners, are using algorithmic ways of sorting content to keep people there, for lack of a better phrase, against their will,” Koskie explained. “That is identifiably a problem.”
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