Let’s be honest, we are all addicted to our screens, whether we consciously limit our time on social media and inane games that contribute nothing but random dopamine hits to our day or not. I have been aware of my addiction to sudoku, playing one game after another and getting faster and lying to myself and saying it’s good for my brain. It’s not. It fuels my anxiety: trying to get faster, to collect enough tokens to win more moves to get the next level in the colour sort game that’s embedded in my sudoku app. And that also contributes exactly nothing to my life. I do limit my time to 30 minutes but I feel like a resentful teenager when my time is up and I long for just one more…
If we, as adults, are struggling with always being on our screens, how much more are our children struggling? Their brains are still developing and they are those teenagers who will play just one more until the next thing they know it’s the early hours of the morning. I see it in my own children and feel so helpless. I see it in my students who are not able to concentrate in class because their eyes and minds are distracted by the other screen which is sending them notifications that they have earned enough tokens to play again (I teach online). You might suggest that we remove their other screen, install software that limits them to just one app but they have multiple devices and this is a problem that technology is not solving.
What’s the solution? I’m not sure I can solve this problem for everyone but I can at least make people aware of how pernicious it is and that we need to start having honest conversations with our children. We want the technology to be the tool and we want to use the tool. At the moment the tool is using us. In addiction treatment the standard protocol is to replace the addictive behaviour with more constructive behaviour and to avoid the addictive substance completely. In cases where there is an addiction to food this is obviously impossible and in the case of screen addiction it is too. While I can completely give up my sudoku, I cannot completely give up my screen.
I read recently where someone said that when they stay awake late at night they often mindlessly scroll on their socials or binge watch television but when they are awake in the early morning they often go for a walk and watch the sunrise. So I have started to put my screens away completely an hour before my bedtime and wake up early and do something that I really want to do but never get time for. Like drawing and walking and reading and crocheting and spending time in nature and writing calligraphy. I’m trying to be more conscious of my use of social media and I’m noticing that when I am feeling good, exercising and eating well it is much easier. When I’m tired and I haven’t eaten well or exercised I fall into the scrolling mindlessly.
So there are a number of lessons here: we need to live more consciously, more mindfully. We only get one life on this beautiful earth and we want to live it to the full doing what we love. We all have to work, to earn money, to go to school or do something that might not be that much fun, but we can build time into our day to do things that nurture our bodies, minds and souls instead of sacrificing our time to the screens that really do steal our joy. Because, as the mystics say, the only time is now, this moment. So let’s make beautiful moments for ourselves and our children.