Screen-Time Struggles

Like many in my generation and those that are coming after, I’ve been trying to get a handle on my screen-time use the last few years.

I’ve tried many different strategies: deleting apps, trading a smartwatch for an analog, leaving the phone in a different room, setting limits and replacing technology with real-life hobbies. All of these have worked, for a while, but then I go back to my phone like a middle-aged woman to her stash of dark chocolate. 

Besides the inability to kick the habit, what particularly worries me about this is what I am taking away from all this technology use. 

There are some lines I think about from the poem, “There Was a Child Went Forth” by Walt Whitman, 

“There was a child went forth every day,

And the first object he looked upon and received with

Wonder or pity or love or dreamt, that object he became,

And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day…

Or for many years or stretching cycle of years.”

If we are coming forth with the images on our reels because our phone is the first object we “look upon” in the morning, how is that becoming part of us? 

While trying to figure out how to best parent my emerging young adults, I stumbled across this line in You’re Not Done Yet: Parenting Young Adults in an Age of Uncertainty  by Dr. Janet Hibbs and Dr. Anthony Rostain: 

“Digital media platforms are not simply neutral purveyors of information, social connection, and entertainment. They are powerful, profit-driven influencers of human behavior on a  global scale” (164).

I guess I knew that already, but it’s helpful to be reminded of that when those powerful messages are interspersed amongst the silly cat videos and meal prep tutorials.

Money is part of the equation.

Money and influence.

Besides the overt messages, there are the more subtle ones.

It only takes me a few algorithm clicks to be immersed in a world that demands for me to take action. Click on one meal prep tutorial and suddenly it seems as if the whole world is prepping elaborate weekly meals for their families. Like one video by an influencer you didn’t know had ties to a certain political situation and suddenly you’ve become part of an uprising you did not know existed. 

I like to think that I curate my feed pretty well, but then I made pancakes this morning and thought about how lame that was next to the guy who made power protein sandwiches and pumpkin muffins for his kids and think maybe I don’t have a handle on it.

And the thing is, I don’t. Does anyone?

I’m told that balance is the answer and I think it is naive to think that we will go back to something that no longer exists. It’s just hard to see the hurt that is happening right now. And I guess that’s all I really want to say because I’m clearly no expert.