I am trying to change my internet viewing habits. Like so many other people, I easily become addicted to YouTube Shorts and adrenaline-pumping news headlines, so I have been weaning myself off of them. I no longer visit Facebook or Reddit or Bluesky or any number of other websites I once enjoyed. I realized they were not good for me, even while I miss the friends and family I met there.
That is all well and good, but I am now finding I can’t fill the void with television, either. Regular broadcast TV is now mostly just regurgitating old sitcoms, old movies, and twenty-four hour news channels. I can set it to show me a true crime channel and let it provide me with predictable background noise, but it isn’t exactly entertaining.
When I try to find a movie on Netflix or some other subscription-based streaming channel, I am faced with a wall of images of guns, anger, fire, and war. I don’t watch anything that is primarily about guns or war, so I am left with a very meagre set of film choices. As I think about this, I realize that this is the situation for most people in north America. We are being fed a steady diet of violence as diversion.
We should not be surprised, then, when people are killed by guns in real life. Whether they are prominent public figures or schoolchildren, their deaths by gunfire have become daily news. And, because that news comes to us daily, it is no longer alarming.
I am not suggesting that the violence in our media causes violence in society, but I do think there is a correlation between our reactions to both. When all our news, and all our movies, and all our social media contain violence, we either shrug it off or shut it off. When it happens in real life every day, all our senses have already become blunted.
When we see family members and friends of victims on the news, they usually express horror and shock at what has happened. For them, the effect is visceral and heartbreaking. But for the rest of us, it is just another mediated crime and it is hard for us to separate our reactions to the real crimes and victims from our reactions to the fictional crimes and victims in films and TV shows.
Like civilians trying to survive a war they cannot avoid, we are all staring blankly at a screen just trying to get through another day without giving up hope.
Snowbird of Paradise 
Anne: My daughter-in-law Anna likes Britbox and I have been considering it. Barb
I agree that Britbox has a lot of good shows. I forgot to mention them.
@snowbirdofparadise.com
I came to a bit of a moral crisis ten or fifteen years ago, and walked away from a gig writing novels for a sci-fi combat game franchise because I felt it glorified senseless and unending war in a way I was uncomfortable with. I'm still friends with those folks, and they keep inviting me back. But it was something my conscience wouldn't let me do.
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You made the right choice! It may have changed your career path, but it probably gave you better sleep. It troubles me that so much of our media uses war as a hook.
@snowbirdofparadise.com
Since then, though I do write mystery and related genres, I've tried not to glorify gins or gunplay. I have a new fantasy action series I'd like to launch (just a "pilot" novella so far). I had the hero pick up a gun entering a dangerous situation, and it felt wrong. Instead, he defeated his armed attacker with stealth, cunning, and a Crescent wrench hidden up his sleeve. It's my intention to stay on this track going forward.
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Congratulations on finding a different genre and alternatives to gun violence. I don’t know where you live, but most- probably all – of the people in my world do not own guns and don’t use violence to resolve conflict. I like your choice to use stealth and cunning in your fictional conflicts.
It is a danger to become numb to the violence. I don’t watch fictional violence as there is enough real-life violence. How to stay informed and still have the ability feel the anguish is a tricky balance. I haven’t figured out that balance yet.
I think that is what I am wrestling with; finding the balance. When I heard about the latest killing of a high-profile person, i didn’t care. In fact, I didn’t even know who it was. I had to Google him. But then I realized I was not caring about a real human being.
Oh, great point. As I live here in this violent country, I continue to reach for what I have in common with them. Sometimes the main/only common denominator is that they are human beings too. It’s an important commonality.
I don’t know if this will help you find something on Netflix that’s palatable to watch, but here’s a link on how to use codes to sort thru content. I haven’t tried it yet myself. https://www.netflix-codes.com/
Thanks, June. I have actually cancelled my Netflix account for the time being. If you try the codes system, let me know how it goes, please.