It’s also a social thing. My partner and her friends watch the same reality shows, follow the same Instagram celebrities. They talk about the reality shows, what the celebrities have posted (in all honesty they seem to fill the exact same void). In that context I don’t think it’s all that much worse than, say, a group of people gathering to talk about last weekend’s football game.

I find video games fill that same “mindless” void for me. Prior to the pandemic I’d barely played any in a decade but now I’ll fire up Call of Duty every couple of days to play a few rounds. It’s dumb, I learn nothing from it and I achieve nothing. But it’s nice to switch my brain off.