Anybody else find life to loud, colourful and fast? Looking back at old tv things has made me long for the past.

[Superhansrantowindsor]

Am I being silly or is life just too hectic and busy. Big screens everywhere- on the bus , in the waiting room at the doctors. Loud music in shops with bright displays. Even billboards at the bus stop change and flicker.
I was watching an old documentary on YouTube and it just seemed like like was duller in the past but calming and just nicer.
Anyone else feel like this?

edited to say I’m sorry about the typo in the title.

This takes luck though

I try design my life to be not full of sensory overload but still have to deal with it sometimes - as I think most of us do.

spare a thought for those who have to work in it. Many people can't avoid it. I don't have kids but I imagine it's awful to be in school now.

I'm dreading taking elderly mum to the supermarket today. An adventure for her, hence why I'm taking her.

I saw something that analysed the number of scene changes in a child’s tv programme - think it was paw patrol- and compared it to the slow animation from much earlier children’s programmes. The doctor was explaining how damaging the quick changing scenes were to a child’s brain. It was fascinating.

This is me.

I only ever watch old TV shows. For lovely quiet nostalgia I really recommend stuff like The Last Detective, Lovejoy, Jam and Jerusalem, Detectorists, The Coroner (old version with Claire Goose)

YES! Sums it up perfectly.

Do you know what's been bothering me for a while? When you get emails and they flash from image to image. I've no idea what it's called, but it's probably also used a lot on TikTok and Imstagram. I can't focus and my eyes blink rapidly. All I want to do is actually properly see the products they are telling me about, not have them all flash up 0.5 seconds apart.

I've been itching to email all the culprits. It also makes me think how it affects those who have epilepsy or certain types of migraines.

I feel a "Dear Points of View" type communication brewing.

Detectorists is brilliant for that calming feeling! I’ve been watching Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing and Canal Boat Diaries on BBC. I’m not particularly into fishing or canal boats but the shows are lovely and slow-paced.

Yes, everywhere has a screen. Dentist waiting room, doctor/clinic/hospital waiting room, buses, trains, street advertising. I always have earphones in with a talking book playing to drown out the unwanted noise.

Yeah, even on Sundays

DH and I have been doing a lot of rural and coastal walking and one of the things we love is the silence. Once you are away from roads, the quiet is revolutionary. You realise what life must have been like say 200 years ago, and the onslaught of sound since the Industrial Revolution. Though that also gets me thinking about the depopulation of the countryside since mechanisation and the loss of birds and other species with the lack of hedgerows - in other words, the countryside should have more natural sounds in it.
Coming back to our home city is always hard.

I wouldn’t want to go back in time but some moderation is surely necessary.

I also always have my phone/ social media on silent - I don’t want the music/ soundtrack to everything. I don’t even want videos - why does everything have to be a video? I prefer just words and photographs.

Adverts and TV shows are endlessly trying to wring emotion out of us. It's exhausting and they are artless in doing it. It's all so cliched and predictable that I am now so cynical, I'm ashamed of myself.

I find being out among people and in the modern world makes me really stressed. My breathing is poor and my intestines stop moving entirely until i have been home a few hours. It's a jungle.

Last Christmas I had no telly. I listened to Christmas music quietly on my CD player, lit candles and read books. That is going to be my default Christmas from now on.

We didn't have any music at our wedding and people said it was brilliant as they could all talk to each other. Modern life is hard on the soul.

My local Cafe Nero has quiet classical music on the sound system. I'm not sure cafes need background music at all but it's so unusual and pleasant I told one of the (young) baristas how lovely it was. She said "yeah - better than drums 'n' base"

Was in a service station McDonald's for breakfast the other morning for coffee and to use the facilities and the music was just rubbish.
It was only a small place and seemed to be blaring. I once asked a phone shop to turn the music down a bit as I couldn't hear the woman helping me. They did it , but it went up the minute I was gone ! lol

To be fair I remember dragging my mum into TopShop in the late 80s and her complaining about the noise and chaos.. so it might be an age thing.

Good point. Not to mention the messy, rammed communal changing area!

I used to swim in the early mornings until my local pool decided that we needed upbeat music to energise us. 🙄It's rubbish now. You can't even hear the music properly because of the acoustics- it's just a cacophony. I miss the sound of the water.

@MotherOfCatBoy

I don’t even want videos - why does everything have to be a video? I prefer just words and photographs.

Fully agree. There are loads of online websites, SM accounts, etc that I no longer follow because they've moved into someone "talking to you" rather than printed words on a page that you can read.

Latest thing I've cancelled is a subscription for professional training courses - pre covid they were actual in-person lectures in local hotels etc but due to covid they changed it to a live video of a presenter, with accompanying course notes you could print - I tended to ignore the video and just read the notes, the only bit I "watched" was the end live Q&A session. Now they've changed the format to power point slides with a recorded voice over - no one to watch, no notes to read, so you've got to just listen to someone droning on and watching the slides change occasionally. No thanks, subscription cancelled, I'll take my money to a different provider.

Even our local football club are at it. You used to be able to read the manager's post match comments and other announcements on their website. Now it's all pre-recorded videos where you're trapped into spending more time watching them speak, interspersed with adverts etc. Again, I've just lost interest and given up!

My neighbour has her garden ones up all year round, and they flash!

Totally agree.
dd and I recently spent a day of our holiday in our cottage just doing a jigsaw puzzle, then we went fir a walk. We were in the middle of nowhere in Cornwall abd it was bliss to get away from it

I literally left a meal early yesterday. It started off peaceful and quiet. And then they started paying loud music. So I rushed the rest and left. It went from really lovely to unbearable for me.

I agree. When ds2 was little we bought dvds with older shows on and he watched them. Only watched a handful of things on cbeebies at selected times. He watched the older Dr Who's as well. Also, older shows on YouTube that people have put on.

We never have noise on at home. No TV, headphones for watching YouTube or Netflix and perhaps the news on the World Service or Radio 4. All I can hear in the house is the fridge gently humming, the grandfather clock ticking and the birds in the garden. I live on a housing estate, but it's not particularly noisy. I just kind of live in my own quiet world. We have soft lamps on in rooms rather than overhead lights, apart from in the kitchen if we're busy in there.

If this thread is you I think you will LOVE this show.
Quiet little lives lived with purpose.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0022nnt/miss-pyms-day-out-bookmark

I remember when the advertising around football grounds were still.
Now they move around and change obviously to get attention. However I find it puts you off the game, when the adverts are moving around.

Yes, but the difference was Top Shop, Chelsea Girl etc were the exception - they were noisy in a much quieter world.

Yes the constant noise is what affects my mental health the most. Noise everywhere. Motorbikes roaring around until 1/2 am, constant fireworks currently for weeks on end, stuck in traffic jams constantly and cars with noisy exhausts. there is just no escaping it. Even at work I can't concentrate as there is just constant chatter, no one seems to do much work. Unless you can afford to live in the country( which most people can't), then we are just stuck with this constant noise, it's depressing. I just want a peaceful life.