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Opinion | Letterboxd, Duolingo, Goodreads- are we addicted to logging ourselves?

Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash

By Hunter Grasdal, Third Year, Liberal Arts

At the start of the new year, many people have New Year’s resolutions they attempt to maintain throughout the year. Some want to be healthier, some want to travel more, and some want to try new hobbies, or want to be better at their current hobby. For almost all of these, there is a tracking app. Can we have healthy boundaries with these apps? And do we need all of them?

When I first downloaded Letterboxd, an online platform where people can log and track movies they had seen, I did not use it much. While people wrote eloquent, fleshed-out reviews, I simply gave it some stars and moved on. Over time, my friends and I followed each other on Letterboxd, and I started actually writing something about the movies I watched. This was fine, and then this feeling of imposter syndrome would sneak itself into my brain. If I watched a movie, and my review of it was in stark contrast to what everyone else was saying, I would doubt myself. Did I completely miss the mark? Am I not smart enough to understand it? I felt like I had not seen enough, my four favourites (a feature on Letterboxd) were not good or intelligent enough, and I didn’t understand the films enough.

Goodreads was something I also did not use as much when I first downloaded it, and now I almost feel nauseous looking at it. On Goodreads, people can set a certain number of books they want to read each year. In 2023, I did not achieve my reading goal, and I felt so horrible about myself- as if this meant I was not good enough at reading and was the dumbest person on earth. This imposter syndrome was taking over my actual love for reading.

Using apps in relation to my hobbies is within itself not bad, it is when these hobbies, these things I do for pleasure, feel like a chore and as something I have to do. I have to watch all of these movies, I have to read all these books and if I missed something about them, I need to look at them again. I should read this unrealistic number of books, and watch all the movies ever made, because, of course, I have the time and energy. It becomes overwhelming, and maybe it is time to log off.

These social media apps are good for finding others who like the same movies and books as you. It can also be a good way of finding a new favourite you may not have picked otherwise. There is always a risk that tracking and logging apps can become all-consuming. This need to track your steps, your calories, your to-do lists and absolutely everything in your life. And for some, logging things is how they best function. I do not think everyone develops this obsessive relationship with these apps. People have healthy relationships and boundaries with their hobbies. It is all about recognising when it is not healthy anymore.

Another question is do we need all these apps?  I see ads everywhere for an app called ‘Shelf, where you shelf what you are reading, what you are listening to and watching at the moment. Perhaps I am just a sceptic, but I struggle sometimes to see the point of having an app for absolutely everything. You search up ‘book tracking’, and thousands of recommendations come up. You want to track your steps, or your gym sesh? Well, here is an infinite number of apps! Do we need all these apps? Can we not enjoy our hobbies as they are? Does the app make us feel more connected or disconnected to our hobbies? These millions of apps serve the same purpose, all claiming they are better than the other one. Perhaps only one or two is enough. Perhaps we should open the notes app a bit more or use a notebook.

Apps built for hobbies and tracking can be a genuinely helpful tool to discover and have an overview of what you have read/seen/done. It is just important to not overdo it, and push ourselves to limits that burn us to the end.

I will say that I love a one-line Letterboxd review that makes me laugh, and I like being noisy in my friend’s reading business. But holding these apps at a certain distance is also necessary so that my hobby remains something I do off my phone. Advertisements will make you feel that you need this app, but I assure you, you do not.

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