“Buzz!” That little shout suddenly stops you from your locked in work and makes you want to check to see who has texted. You realize it’s just an email from that one website you keep forgetting to unsubscribe from, but now that you have it in your hand-you believe that you deserve a little “brain break”, just five minutes you promise yourself, just to see what has changed on Instagram from the last time you checked (which was 15 minutes ago). So you scroll, like, and stalk that one person from middle school you haven’t seen in 10 years. Your five minutes’ is up, but it’s 1:27, so you say that at 1:30 you will put your phone down so it’s an even number. You open tiktok, laugh, compare your body to that one person that seems to have the perfect life, look at Emily Mariko’s cooking videos, check texts, still no response, why not check the weather while you're at it, maybe scroll through some old photos and videos too.
You check the time.
1:54.
You rub your face and groan at the amount of work you still have left. So you promise yourself that it’s lock in time. You set your phone face down and begin to grind. 10 minutes passes.
“Buzz!”
You promise yourself five minutes of a brain break once more as your face unlocks to the world of constant entertainment…
…
I think it’s fair to say that in the last five-ish years or so, we have all found ourselves in this nasty feedback loop of distraction. The little computers at our fingertips are quite great at pulling us away from necessary work and shit that is happening right in front of your eyes by convincing you that the person reviewing NYC’s best bagels or a funny meme your friend sent, are a lot more important.
And I know we know all of this.
We hear it constantly, how distracting they are, how they affect our mental health, how addictive they are, bla bla bla.
Phones!
They have their pros and cons! We know we know we know!!!
And yet, despite us being widely aware of this, we continue to choose to be distracted. We choose to look at emails and social media right as we wake up and before we fall asleep, we choose to have our heads bent over as we stand in line waiting, we choose to walk as our thumbs tap tap tap, and we choose to eat our meals with something constantly playing in the background.
Whether it is a constant practice, or here and there, every single one of us is guilty of these actions (unless you’re those people that live in Antarctica that they make documentaries about, in which case, you are probably not reading this).
I admit-I’m not as bad as maybe some people, I don’t have tiktok, I try my best to put my phone away in the presence of others, and I’m pretty good at not looking at it in the morning or when I wake up. (I’ll credit most of this to Dr. Huberman, Ezra Klien, and other podcasts).
But like everyone else, I still fall victim to doom scrolling every once in a while or pulling out my phone in a moment of “awkwardness”.
In all honesty, it’s hard to see the relevance of this problem when it’s all so normalized. Everyone else is doing it around me, so it’s only fair if I do it too! And while I considered myself pretty aware and educated on this topic, I didn't really feel the weight of it til the past week at my job.
Last summer I worked with little ones at a gymnastics camp, and while it was startling to hear that some eight year olds were already on their way to get an iphone, they still were just flipping and flopping around all day-enjoying the crispness of youth. Yet this summer- is different. I’m working with 15 and 16 year olds, who have access to their phones at all points of the day, and as my fellow PC’s and I met with our group of students each day after class, observed others eating in the dining hall, or ran into them on the elevator, I and others truly felt the weight of this problem.
Seeing these young teens just three years younger than me glued to their screens at all hours, was almost revolting. It felt like watching people struggle with a substance addiction right in front of my eyes. Because that is exactly what this problem is-an addiction. I saw them get distracted by a buzz every second as we were talking straight to their faces, stare down at tiktok as they ate their breakfast despite being surrounded by their peers, or watch them realize they missed the door exit because they were walking and texting at the same time, all of it made me want to throw my phone across the room and never see it again, because I knew I was guilty of these exact actions. It was like having an out of body experience. As I watched these teens sit with a curve in their spines and heads down- thinking they were getting something so much more fulfilling from the remote world than their current surroundings, the Catalina that floated above saw myself do the same exact thing, I could hear her screaming at me to LOOK UP LOOK UP LOOK UP. In that moment I feared all I had missed out on from looking away from the outside world, and all I can possibly miss if I continue to stare down.
What sounds of life will my ears miss if they are always filled with music and podcasts?
What sensations will my hands miss if they are constantly liking the next instagram post?
What will my tastebuds miss from always watching something when I eat alone?
What will my eyes miss if I am constantly looking down, away from the present, away from the now.
I guess what this whole experience fueled me to do was to have more of a cautious awareness of when and where I pull out my phone.
Because sometimes, I love being able to go on a solo walk listening to the latest Huberman Lab episode, sometimes I love to curl up with my takeout Thai food and watch my favorite movie on a Friday night. Sometimes Instagram reels are funny as hell! Or I like seeing what my friends are up to across the interweb! There is a time and place for it-but I’m attempting to be more cautious that it doesn't need to happen all the time.
When I’m with my friends and family-I’m trying to do my best to put my phone down, and know that I can always respond to that text an hour later. When I enter an elevator I’m embracing the awkwardness that arises from the brief 10 seconds I have to stand with nothing to do but wait for the doors to open. When I sit on the subway, I’m enjoying pulling out my book or simply people watching instead. As I eat my breakfast in the dining hall, I’m allowing myself to be fully present with the food in front of me and taste all that it has to offer.
It’s difficult and sometimes I do still fall victim to watching Cody Ko at my lunch time. Sue me.
But-I guess I’m just trying to be more aware, and mindful of the whole experience. As cliche as it all sounds I don’t have a single memory from when I was on my phone.
I have-and I believe we all have memories, good and bad, of real life people, real life things, and real life experiences. I hope to never miss out on one because I was sucked into the digital space.
Yeah, that’s really all I have to say on this one.
Still like to text and scroll from time to time.
But I guess I’m doing my best to not do it as much.
And once again-as I have said before…
Be present be present be present!
It’s ok to be bored!!!
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