I found this article on Slate really interesting, about how the author has used knitting as a way to slow down, to calm her temptation to digitally multitask and to regain some of her joy of reading, albeit through Audiobooks instead of actual pages.
Katrina Gulliver says she learned to knit as a child but only recently picked it back up and found its calming properties allowed her to “engage more productively with digital media,” extending her attention span and making her podcast-listening and Netflix-watching time more productive.
She’s firmly a project knitter (rather than a process knitter, who cares more about the act of knitting than the thing being made), but still sees the benefit of time devoted to a project as a way of delaying gratification that’s rare in our society.
Does knitting do the same thing for you? Do you find yourself checking your devices less when you’re knitting? I’d love to hear what knitting does for you.
I took use knitting as a way to relax in the evening, though I do make specific items to sell on an auction site, such as baby clothes & Christmas stockings. It helps to ground me so that I don’t think about stressful stuff.