Yes, me, the writer that likes to comfortably hide behind a screen and thousands of words. So, I’ve been (begrudgingly) playing around, making videos here and there trying to figure out my style etc. (ball ache, by the way).

Why am I telling you this? For context ok just listen.

Today I was scrolling through TikTok like I always do- you know, in a fkn hole, each dissociative swipe bringing me closer to madness, the kind where you look up and forty minutes have evaporated and you can't remember a single video you just watched. You’ve been there, don’t lie.

But this time, something shifted. My perception shifted.

I noticed the hook in the first three seconds. The way they framed the shot. The cut that made me want to keep watching. The lighting. The pacing. And suddenly I wasn't consuming anymore. It’s like I was kind of… studying.

The content hadn't changed. My phone hadn't changed. But, I had stopped using it as a television and started using it as a tool.

Wait. Woah.

For years. Maybe since I got my first smartphone, honestly. Energy flowing out of me, absolutely nothing coming back.

Just endless input. Scrolling, consuming, absorbing, refreshing. The algorithm feeding me content, me feeding the algorithm my time and attention. A perfect closed loop where I was the resource being extracted.

I was choosing what to watch, swiping to the next thing, making micro-decisions constantly. But that's the trick, isn't it? You're not making anything. You're not building anything.

You're just... selecting from an infinite menu that someone else prepared for you. That’s how they get ya. It's television, literally personalised television that pretends to be participatory.

The muscle memory of reaching for my phone when I was bored, when I was waiting, when I was anxious, when I was, let's be honest, literally any time my brain wasn't occupied. That wasn't me using my phone. That was my phone using me.

But here's what kind of sent me into a spiral—it's the same device doing both of these things.

When I open my phone to make something like film a video, write something down, capture an idea, or edit a photo, the energy is completely different. I'm not being programmed. I'm programming. I'm not the audience. I'm the participant.

It's a camera I always have on me, a poetry book in my pocket, a direct line to people who actually want to hear what I have to say (I hope). And above all, a way to capture ideas the moment they happen, before they evaporate (because my brain doesn’t store things any longer than 3 minutes.)

I can look at the exact same TikTok and either let it wash over me or reverse-engineer it. Same video. Different relationship to it.

When I started picking apart short-form videos for ideas, noticing all the little production details, suddenly I could see the scaffolding. The technique that was invisible before became obvious. The algorithm was still trying to keep me there, but now I was there on purpose, taking notes, learning. It's like the moment you start watching TV as a filmmaker instead of as a couch person. Everything changes, but nothing changes. Ya feel me?

Remember the early iPhone ads? "There's an app for that." The whole pitch was about what YOU could do. What you could create. What you could accomplish. These were supposed to be tools for empowerment.

And they are! The tools are literally all there, babe.

Professional-grade camera. Editing software. Publishing platforms. Access to millions of people. Everything you need to make and share creative work is literally in your pocket right now.

The apps that make billions don't want you creating. They want you consuming, scrolling, staying, watching. Because that's where the ad revenue lives.

So, we've been conditioned, very deliberately, very effectively, to reach for the feed instead of the camera. To watch other people's creativity instead of making our own. To be the audience instead of the artist.

And the wildest part is that it worked so freaking well that most of us didn't even notice it was happening. The shift from tool to television was so gradual, so seamless, that it felt natural. It’s peak gaslighting; of course this is what phones are for, of course this is how we use them.

Except it's not.

Here's the good news: you don't need different tools. You don't need to buy anything. You don't need permission. You just need a different relationship to the device you're already holding.

Creating content, even small stuff, even imperfect stuff, especially imperfect stuff, completely changes the energy. You stop being passive and start noticing things, and realising stuff, like Kylie in 2016.

You become curious instead of hypnotised, participating instead of spectating.

Making something, sharing it, connecting with people who respond to it, that's a totally different dopamine hit than the empty sugar rush of the scroll.

The phone is the same. The apps are the same. But when you flip the script from consumption to creation, you reclaim agency. You're not being used anymore. You're doing the using.

It's not about never consuming content again. That's not realistic and tbh not the point. It's about remembering that you have a choice in how you relate to this thing. You can be the television or you can be the person holding the remote. You can be the audience or you can be the artist.

You can let it steal your attention or you can wield it as the incredibly powerful creative tool it actually is. You decide. The choice is all yours.

-Sophie Randell, Writer