How did we get here?
Only a few years ago, you had to read a magazine in the waiting room of the doctor’s office or commiserate with fellow patients over your ailments. At the airport, you talked with other travelers about where they had been or were going or daydreamed while watching the planes take off and land.
Today, each of us carries a handheld device with a screen that displays a “testing-the-bounds-of-infinity” of loosely-named content generated by generously-named creators. Mind control experts detect and inflame your desires by feeding you a gluttonous portion.
Most have succumbed to the addiction. We probably spend more time on the phone than talking with our spouses, playing with our children, reading, exercising, and praying (maybe combined).
The Awakening
For me, the realization began during the 2021 Cyclothon, an 845-mile road-cycling relay race around Iceland. When it was my turn to ride, I steeled my face and pedaled furiously as if my life depended on it. My Icelandic cycling counterpart, Hordur, noticed my head-down intensity and beseeched me “to keep my head up or I would miss the best part of the race.”
The massive glaciers, moonscape lava fields, and sparkling waterfalls combined with the relationship-building shared experience over the 49-hour ordeal proved Hordur entirely correct.
The experience made me consider where I figuratively buried my head in my daily life. The answer was easy: social media on my phone. You can add my computer, TV, and streaming services, but the phone’s portability and social media’s soundbite messaging are a particularly intrusive match made in hell.
Why Not?
While our phones transmit some virtuous content, the preponderance of the useless or detrimental drowns out the beneficial, the needle in the haystack. Any benefit from the fitness tips is swamped by creating anxiety over the impending breakdown of society, rage over our polarized politicians, and envy over everyone else’s perfect lives.
Devoting attention to social media is the equivalent of investing money at the roulette wheel and horse tracks or in the lottery, a consistently losing proposition interrupted by infrequent victories that entice us to continue the cycle.
Like a weekend in Vegas with free drinks, budget buffets, and the adrenaline rush before the next card is dealt, there is some recreational benefit to screen use. However, our intimate knowledge of the latest drama on White Lotus, the latest TikTok line dance trend, and Facebook memes indicate we go far beyond relaxing recreation.
For those who claim business necessity, does easy access artificially create the need, and how much does your usage exceed your legitimate need?
What to do?
The phone’s death-like grip on our attention is so powerful that it cannot be released by yesteryear’s admonition to “stop and smell the roses;” we must be far more intentional.
Beyond turning off notifications and establishing screen-free times and zones, resist the occasions you mindlessly reach for your phone to avoid being alone with your thoughts. Leave your phone behind when you go to the bathroom; it does nothing for your digestive evacuation and may prevent one of daydreaming’s eureka moments.
After the Cyclothon, I reduced my daily phone screen time by an hour. I felt more relief than any deprivation. Regretfully, the algorithm is against us, and I recently fell victim to Instagram’s snares. Resistance was futile; I surrendered and deleted the app (without any loss of cultural enrichment).
However, pursuing the better is more compelling than avoiding the bad. A speaker posed this question: “How many more great conversations could you have, how much more progress could you make toward your goals, and how many more books could you read if you spent less time on social media?”
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Where can you enhance your life by saying “no” to your screen?