There’s a difference between having social media accounts and doom-scrolling your life away. A wake-up call we all need!
There’s no judgment or blame for anyone with high screen time. It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. However, recognizing the habit and being intentional with your energy could lead to a more fulfilling life.
The modern world operates online, so why wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. There are concerning implications of replacing human interaction and real-life experience with screen time.
You can’t daydream when you’re doom-scrolling. Can’t be mindful of your energy and surroundings when you’re chronically online. You can’t engage with your community and connect with others when you’re looking at your phone. You are not present.
The internet used to be fun
The unfathomable depth of the internet used to be exciting and liberating for me. I used to find artists who inspired me to dig deeper and express myself creatively. I’d get lost in 50-page-deep rabbit holes about baroque and Gothic architecture, the simplicity and complexity of numbers, or the production of animation and stop-motion films. I could learn about anything that crossed my mind if I so desired.
I could see what my friends and family were doing on social media, even when they were hundreds of miles away. Before my friends and I could drive, we could essentially “hang out” with each other on Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, and Skype. The accessibility of communication and information made the world seem so much bigger, and life was full of potential. The internet taught me how to dream.
The internet is even more massive now, and social media plays a more significant role in our lives than ever before. Social media is known to have harmful effects on self-esteem, mental health, sleep, and attention span, but there’s so much more to it than that. I’ve seen the effects of social media usage on young and old alike. Thinking about how it’ll only keep growing terrifies me.
More than 25% of our lives are screen time
The global average screen time is 6 hours and 40 minutes per day. In a 24-hour day, the average adult spends 8 hours sleeping, 8 hours on work or school, and about 2 hours preparing and eating food. Ignoring screen time, we have just 6 hours to do everything else. To care for our health and well-being and truly allow any possibility of being happy, we need to spend time building connections with other humans, reflecting, daydreaming, exercising, playing, and developing new skills.
Factoring in screen time leaves you with negative free and negative time in control of your life. It scares me how easily it is to get addicted to social media without realizing you’re missing everything happening right before you. Essentially, every second, we are asked if we want to live our lives online or in reality. And if you don’t acknowledge the question, I’m afraid the decision is made for you without your consent. This is completely by design.
Your attention is a hot commodity. You are the subject of someone else’s profit every second you’re on social media, whether you notice it or not. Your data is being sold, and you’re being influenced to spend money you don’t have. Think of how many ads you see and how many strangers on the internet tell you to buy something. Big companies have designed this system to keep you on your phones as much as possible so they have the best chance of making a buck off of you.
Start questioning why you do it
When I spoke with a friend about this, they shared a saying with me that rang true in a visceral way. “Are you driving the car, or is the car driving you?” I found this to describe the relationship people have with social media perfectly. When you’re bored and habitually pick up your phone and start scrolling, it proves the shift in control from you to the app.
When you find yourself scrolling after who knows how long, and you forget why you got on your phone in the first place, you start to feel the control social media has over you. You didn’t need to check for a message, you weren’t seeking out inspiration or community; you just did it. It’s the first thing you do when you wake up, the last thing you do before you go to sleep, and it’s what you do in between everything else.
It happens at work, school, the supermarket, parties, home, in the car, everywhere. The second there’s a lull in conversation, BOOM. Phone out. There’s a line at the cafe? BOOM. You better watch Snapchat stories. Sitting at a red light? BOOM. I guess I’ll check Instagram. Do you have to wait 30 seconds for the shower to get hot? BOOM. Just enough time to hop on TikTok. You have to use the bathroom, BOOM, can’t forget your phone.
People want to know you
It’s constant by nature, so we’ve found comfort in the routine and made a habit out of it. It’s always there for us, so we don’t need anything else. But if that were true, why do we feel so sad and lonely? We have collectively replaced interacting with the world and connecting with mindless consumption in a falsified digital world. The comfort we rely on our phones for keeps us from feeling good.
I want to meet people and learn about the world. There are classmates, co-workers, and strangers to connect with. I hate feeling like I’m interrupting when I want to talk to someone glued to their phone. I’m worried they would rather scroll than talk to me. The thought of me, a human being, being valued less than a string of memes void of any meaningful message makes me question my worth as a person. It’s backward and enough to make you feel crazy.
Brain rot is not cute, and you know it
Brain rot should not be trendy. It is literally your consciousness rotting, becoming spoiled and dysfunctional. When you say, “I’m going to go brain rot,” and chuckle about it, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate something. What kind of dystopian world do we live in where casually broadcasting our brain’s stunted capacity is a cutesy little thing to say? And why are we okay with our friends and family doing it?
Everyone needs an escape sometimes; I get it. I really do. But we should know better by now. Quit it with the stubbornness. Quit it with the “I don’t feel like it,” the “I’m bored”s, the “there’s nothing else to do,” and the “I don’t care.” Yes, there is, and yes, you do. But okay. If you really insist, then OK. Wait a few years down the road when your body is atrophying, you hate your life, and have nothing to be proud of, and no one who’ll listen to you cry about it.
It’s no wonder you’re always bored and don’t know how you feel or what you want. You are a slave to the screen, so it’s really no wonder.
Is the habit serving you?
This habitual addiction steals time, energy, and attention you would have spent on something that matters to you, on something fulfilling, something that contributes to your future happiness and well-being. Forfeiting all this time to temporary dopamine dumps removes any opportunity to spend time with yourself. You need that time to know who you are, what you want, and what you stand for.
You may feel lost, lonely, or unfulfilled; social media might treat that momentarily. But those feelings remain and will resurface the second you log off. I was in this vicious cycle for years, hating myself and thinking all my friends were fake. After a while, I believed my life would be like this forever. I had no discipline, self-trust, and a sorry excuse for a sense of self. It took a long time, and I’m still working on it, but addressing my online dependency was the dominant force keeping me in that hopeless place.
When everything is a meme, nothing is sincere
Gen Z is the first generation that doesn’t know a life without the internet. Constant consumption isolates our experience, teaching insincerity and underdeveloped communication. It hinders our ability to think critically and even recognize the importance of these qualities to our happiness and well-being.
This leads to difficulty meeting people and making friends with our peers. It’s hard enough to find a social circle as we get older. College, for example, is filled with so many unfamiliar people, places, things, and experiences that can make you feel lonely even in a sea of people. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can put yourself in the physical world and find a place where you feel welcome and safe to explore yourself and your surroundings.
Sometimes, it comes at the sacrifice of your comfort. In my experience, it takes a little courage to step outside your comfort zone. Put your phone down, and try being bored for a minute. It can be surprisingly rewarding to go to a park or café with just a notebook and pen and sit until you start writing, doodling, or talking to someone you’d typically pass by without a second thought.
Productive communication can’t come from memes
Memes are a primary means of communication and expression for Gen Z. Memes are fun and relatable, and I believe there is value in their existence. But it gets tricky when we see more memes than we interact with humans in real life. We start only speaking in meme formats and forget to have meaningful conversations that aren’t the premise of a joke. Before you know it, you won’t know how to think or communicate your wants, needs, goals, or emotions. I’m afraid many are already there.
No one likes going on a date and watching the person be on their phone the whole time. It might feel okay to do it around your friends because you’ve already established a level of familiarity, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still weird. They won’t ghost you, but it doesn’t make you fun to be around.
Screen time puts relationships at risk
Relationships are a significant aspect of human life, but they’re not always easy. Addressing conflict and learning how to understand other people takes work and a lot of communication. Empathy, vulnerability, having uncomfortable conversations, and being a good listener are essential qualities in navigating platonic and romantic connections. Unfortunately, you can’t develop these skills without having face-to-face interpersonal experiences.
Do you want a group of close friends you can feel safe around? A relationship you can be completely yourself in? How will you get any of those things if the foundation of your relationships is the surface-level relatability of online consumption that doesn’t require or acknowledge truth or vulnerability? Intimacy comes from vulnerability and shared experiences
Consequences of screen time in my life
I’ve lived with the people I’ve dated, and these are the relationships phone usage has negatively affected the most. The start of a relationship or cohabitation is fun and exciting. We’d laugh and cook meals together, talk late into the night, and fall asleep in each other’s arms. A few weeks later, it became normal, and we got in the habit of checking our phones and scrolling silently. We’d be right next to each other, and instead of connecting, we’d be in our own little worlds, ignoring each other.
As you may have predicted, we began to grow distant and feel disconnected. We started watching separate videos on our phones during dinner, scrolling in bed instead of cuddling, and stopped kissing each other goodnight. Our quality time was replaced with screen time, which led to less communication, more misunderstanding, and eventually more resentment. We got sucked in by the addictive nature of online consumption and let it destroy our relationship.
After a day of thought-provoking journaling, I’d meet up with my friends, excited to talk about what’s been consuming my mind. I’d tell them about the eye-opening way of seeing conflict in the world that kept me up all night, and their immediate response is, “Chat, is this real, chat? Couldn’t be me.” And then I feel stupid and ignored, as if the excitement that brought me in had vanished instantly. I don’t even want to talk about it anymore. What’s the point?
Social Media Content is not making you happy
In a survey on social media’s impact on life satisfaction, 70.4% of 2,700 Americans reported that social media positively affected their lives. I find this seriously hard to believe. Here’s why.
I worry that those addicted to social media aren’t able to understand how much better and full of connection, creativity, and adventure their lives can be. We may feel brief moments of connection or inspiration, but nothing can last beyond the half a second we scroll to the next meme. And even if it did, you’d have forgotten about it after scrolling through the next few hundred posts before rushing to whatever commitment you’re probably late for now.
Social media is no longer an escape from reality. The real world is how we escape social media. Why do you think there are so many outdoor “unplug” retreats and “off-grid” aspirations? Being chronically online is now the norm for much of Generation Z, so they don’t use it in small doses to decompress or relax between the throes of life. Their loneliness is, instead, a major source of their struggle. Or, at the very least, an inhibitor of sustainable happiness and fulfillment.
Explore the idea and decide for yourself
I suggest making a master list of everything you want in life. Include everything you want to be, everything you want to get, everything you want to try. Then, decide if scrolling gets you closer to anything on your list. I don’t want to spoil the experiment for you, but social media contributed to approximately zero of the 89 wants on my list.
I guess I just think the future for current and future generations is looking pretty damn grim. Do people feel the same, or am I way off here? Is normalizing technology and consumption as the default stimulus throughout our lives a good thing? Are people excited and comforted by this? I don’t know the answers, but I’m fucking terrified.
