As a Gen-Zer who spent most of my high school and college years using technology as an escape from familial dysfunction and undiagnosed chronic health issues (as a means of dissociation, essentially), when I began living alone for the first time two things became immediately apparent to me:
1. I had no basic skills at all. I did not know how to budget, how to grocery shop, how to cook, how to clean, how insurance worked, how to care for my car, how to plan my time - etc. I had not yet had a full time job or serious financial responsibility.
2. I was a very narrow sliver of a human. All of my knowledge and experience was either from a liberal arts education which I barely made it through (but which benefitted me greatly!) and the internet.
When I began dating a wonderful, well-rounded man my senior year of college, I realized the interior and technical (in the sense of "techne" or "skill") poverty that I possessed. He had played sports, was very fit, knew how to cook, knew how to entertain, knew how to pour drinks, had been paying his way through college, had had at least five different jobs which taught him different people skills, money skills, etc. He had a wealth of experience to talk about, and his athleticism and knowledge of the world and people rendered him comfortable in just about any situation.
Meanwhile, I felt like I was just waking up, and to a world which I was woefully unprepared to live in. Everything was new, difficult, and alienating: putting together outfits, cooking meals, making meaningful conversation, dealing with my health issues - and even thinking about exercising, trying to entertain people, trying to navigate social dynamics -- nearly every basic human thing outside of reading, praying, and scrolling online felt herculean. Being with him, I felt ashamed - I saw myself as a shell of a human being, underdeveloped in almost every way. My time spent online had stunted me. We had spent the past eight years of our lives very, very differently, and it showed.
I've known for ages that screens are my way of coping with familial pressure and dysfunction (my family, ironically enough, attempted to be very strict with screens, but largely failed), and for nearly 10 years I have tried to reduce their presence in my life.
Only after achieving some degree of peace in my "analog life" (slowly learning how to do the basic human things such that I no longer need to escape from ordinary life) have I been able to make meaningful reductions in my screentime.
And now, I am exactly where you describe - ready to fill my life with good and beautiful things (books, audiobooks, walks, working out, musical instruments, writing, time with friends), but I am also working a full time job with an 1+ hour commute each way. My time is so limited, and I am still just beginning to be able to budget, cook - take care of those necessary things.
I just came from mass where the homilist wisely advised us all to remember that God comes not to an alternate, imagined version of us or of our lives, but to us in our brokenness and messiness, really and truly - he comes to us as we really are. So while wishful thinking can be damaging, I can honestly say: I wish my most formative years as a young person had been filled not by the internet and all those other means of escape I found and clung to, but by real, actual, meaningful things that would have gradually prepared me to live a full and beautiful life during a stage of life when I actually had the time and the leisure to discover and enjoy them more fully.
I am so thankful for where I am now, but unlike you, I do not remember a time before the internet or before my life was nearly consumed by it.
I am only just now really getting free, and it is in the way you describe - I am falling in love with the real, and permanence and presence is gradually displacing the ephemeral and dissociative illusion in which I feel I lost myself for so long.
I've been in recovery for over a year. In the process of getting sober, I was also able to step back from tech by applying the same tools and techniques I learned - much of which focused on honestly addressing my sober life (life without the numbing). The appeal of "phone-life balance” hacks is, IMO, rooted in the personal denial of a much larger challenge.
They say you shouldn’t yell “don’t run” at a kid at the pool but rather “walk!” In the same way, rather than telling ourselves “stop using your phone” we must say “do XYZ!”
One thing I've noticed in my own screen use, and in conversations with other dads about their screen use, is that screens are an easy choice because they are so flexible about time usage making them very amendable to constant interruptions. Which, at least with small kids in the mix, are just part of life.
Whenever I've tried reading a book or practicing a hobby around my 4 year old twins I just end up extremely frustrated because I'm generally not allowed to focus for more than 2-3 minutes. (And they usually play independently pretty well but there's always "daddy look look" or "where are my scissors?" or "can you cut this tricky part?") You never reach that "flow state". Meanwhile, the kids don't ACTUALLY take my full attention anymore.
I've tried audiobooks -- and fumbling for the pause constantly when kids run up and suddenly start talking. I've tried screen free mindfulness and being in the moment -- but I don't need 4+ hours of that every single day.
I think this is the biggest challenge for going screen free, figuring out how to fill our shattered attention with something that ISN'T screens.
Yes, things are better when I organise an outing and I've taken the kids to the beach or a (short) hike or a museum. But that's not exactly scalable -- most people aren't going to have the time/money/energy to do things like that 5+ days a week.
Maybe things change once kids are in school full time? And parents just need to suck it up for those five years? Maybe helping break screen addiction is another small reason for universal preschool?
Just some rambling thoughts from a stay at home dad who thinks about this stuff a lot and struggles with it
I relate to this so much. My smartphone dependency ramped way up when my kids were really little for exactly the reasons you mention (impossible to read a book when you are getting interrupted every couple minutes, while social media is PERFECT for that type of distracted viewing). My kids are 6 and 3 now, and for me, getting a dumbphone and using programs like Freedom to block my internet access on my laptop (which I ended up going on a lot more after ditching my smartphone) have been the only things that helped. Without physically blocking my access to the internet I have zero self control.
Now, when I'm with the kids and they don't need my full attention, I try to tackle chores around the house or yard instead of zoning out on my phone, and I also started taking them to the grocery store with me and other errands vs ordering everything online which is the habit I had gotten into during the pandemic. And also they're at an age where they actually will play on their own for 30 min+ of time so reading books has become more feasible again.
I think when my son was in that phase, I did small practical things with my hands. Tidy a shelf, fold some laundry, handwrite a shopping list or notes. If we're outside, I'll bring out my small secateurs and do some pruning or pull some weeds.
I'm not great at the playpark... I just need to get over the social stigma and bring a book.
In the Eighties when my daughter was little I read all the time, I was a very distracted and not very happy parent, I was young and lonely. I could read a novel anywhere whilst, swinging my daughter in the play park, on the bus, walking through the park stepping in dog poop because I wasn't looking. We also read a lot of Newspapers and Magazines which kind of worked like social media. I had the radio on at home all the time for company. I was distracted. Not sure what my point is really. Just that well before digitisation we struggled to be present as parents.
Katherine, I brought up your blog last night during a family dinner and was surprised to receive a bristled and confrontational response. The main concern that was brought up was how do we prepare children to exist in a tech saturated world - someone mentioned that if you don’t let your teens use smartphones then they will not be prepared for the “real world” as adults where jobs increasingly rely on smartphones. How would you respond to that claim?
What counts as social media? I read some substacks, do my email, and look at some select news feeds, but do not have Facebook, Instagram, X, Bluesky, Tiktok, and only watch Netflix about 2 hours a week. Yet I am on screen a lot, both writing and reading. If it is screen time that counts I am over the limit. It was always over the limit in academia - we did everything on a screen toward the end of my career, including grading "papers". As a result I am convinced I was teaching incorrectly. But what is the alternative within the present system? At this point I would have to go outside the system entirely to teach effectively, especially in environmental science and agriculture. Perhaps school is part of the problem? Were Ivan Illich and Paulo Freire correct about real education? For those who have never read these two I recommend them highly - along with "Last Child in the Woods".
As a Gen-Zer who spent most of my high school and college years using technology as an escape from familial dysfunction and undiagnosed chronic health issues (as a means of dissociation, essentially), when I began living alone for the first time two things became immediately apparent to me:
1. I had no basic skills at all. I did not know how to budget, how to grocery shop, how to cook, how to clean, how insurance worked, how to care for my car, how to plan my time - etc. I had not yet had a full time job or serious financial responsibility.
2. I was a very narrow sliver of a human. All of my knowledge and experience was either from a liberal arts education which I barely made it through (but which benefitted me greatly!) and the internet.
When I began dating a wonderful, well-rounded man my senior year of college, I realized the interior and technical (in the sense of "techne" or "skill") poverty that I possessed. He had played sports, was very fit, knew how to cook, knew how to entertain, knew how to pour drinks, had been paying his way through college, had had at least five different jobs which taught him different people skills, money skills, etc. He had a wealth of experience to talk about, and his athleticism and knowledge of the world and people rendered him comfortable in just about any situation.
Meanwhile, I felt like I was just waking up, and to a world which I was woefully unprepared to live in. Everything was new, difficult, and alienating: putting together outfits, cooking meals, making meaningful conversation, dealing with my health issues - and even thinking about exercising, trying to entertain people, trying to navigate social dynamics -- nearly every basic human thing outside of reading, praying, and scrolling online felt herculean. Being with him, I felt ashamed - I saw myself as a shell of a human being, underdeveloped in almost every way. My time spent online had stunted me. We had spent the past eight years of our lives very, very differently, and it showed.
I've known for ages that screens are my way of coping with familial pressure and dysfunction (my family, ironically enough, attempted to be very strict with screens, but largely failed), and for nearly 10 years I have tried to reduce their presence in my life.
Only after achieving some degree of peace in my "analog life" (slowly learning how to do the basic human things such that I no longer need to escape from ordinary life) have I been able to make meaningful reductions in my screentime.
And now, I am exactly where you describe - ready to fill my life with good and beautiful things (books, audiobooks, walks, working out, musical instruments, writing, time with friends), but I am also working a full time job with an 1+ hour commute each way. My time is so limited, and I am still just beginning to be able to budget, cook - take care of those necessary things.
I just came from mass where the homilist wisely advised us all to remember that God comes not to an alternate, imagined version of us or of our lives, but to us in our brokenness and messiness, really and truly - he comes to us as we really are. So while wishful thinking can be damaging, I can honestly say: I wish my most formative years as a young person had been filled not by the internet and all those other means of escape I found and clung to, but by real, actual, meaningful things that would have gradually prepared me to live a full and beautiful life during a stage of life when I actually had the time and the leisure to discover and enjoy them more fully.
I am so thankful for where I am now, but unlike you, I do not remember a time before the internet or before my life was nearly consumed by it.
I am only just now really getting free, and it is in the way you describe - I am falling in love with the real, and permanence and presence is gradually displacing the ephemeral and dissociative illusion in which I feel I lost myself for so long.
Beautiful!
I've been in recovery for over a year. In the process of getting sober, I was also able to step back from tech by applying the same tools and techniques I learned - much of which focused on honestly addressing my sober life (life without the numbing). The appeal of "phone-life balance” hacks is, IMO, rooted in the personal denial of a much larger challenge.
They say you shouldn’t yell “don’t run” at a kid at the pool but rather “walk!” In the same way, rather than telling ourselves “stop using your phone” we must say “do XYZ!”
One thing I've noticed in my own screen use, and in conversations with other dads about their screen use, is that screens are an easy choice because they are so flexible about time usage making them very amendable to constant interruptions. Which, at least with small kids in the mix, are just part of life.
Whenever I've tried reading a book or practicing a hobby around my 4 year old twins I just end up extremely frustrated because I'm generally not allowed to focus for more than 2-3 minutes. (And they usually play independently pretty well but there's always "daddy look look" or "where are my scissors?" or "can you cut this tricky part?") You never reach that "flow state". Meanwhile, the kids don't ACTUALLY take my full attention anymore.
I've tried audiobooks -- and fumbling for the pause constantly when kids run up and suddenly start talking. I've tried screen free mindfulness and being in the moment -- but I don't need 4+ hours of that every single day.
I think this is the biggest challenge for going screen free, figuring out how to fill our shattered attention with something that ISN'T screens.
Yes, things are better when I organise an outing and I've taken the kids to the beach or a (short) hike or a museum. But that's not exactly scalable -- most people aren't going to have the time/money/energy to do things like that 5+ days a week.
Maybe things change once kids are in school full time? And parents just need to suck it up for those five years? Maybe helping break screen addiction is another small reason for universal preschool?
Just some rambling thoughts from a stay at home dad who thinks about this stuff a lot and struggles with it
I relate to this so much. My smartphone dependency ramped way up when my kids were really little for exactly the reasons you mention (impossible to read a book when you are getting interrupted every couple minutes, while social media is PERFECT for that type of distracted viewing). My kids are 6 and 3 now, and for me, getting a dumbphone and using programs like Freedom to block my internet access on my laptop (which I ended up going on a lot more after ditching my smartphone) have been the only things that helped. Without physically blocking my access to the internet I have zero self control.
Now, when I'm with the kids and they don't need my full attention, I try to tackle chores around the house or yard instead of zoning out on my phone, and I also started taking them to the grocery store with me and other errands vs ordering everything online which is the habit I had gotten into during the pandemic. And also they're at an age where they actually will play on their own for 30 min+ of time so reading books has become more feasible again.
I think when my son was in that phase, I did small practical things with my hands. Tidy a shelf, fold some laundry, handwrite a shopping list or notes. If we're outside, I'll bring out my small secateurs and do some pruning or pull some weeds.
I'm not great at the playpark... I just need to get over the social stigma and bring a book.
In the Eighties when my daughter was little I read all the time, I was a very distracted and not very happy parent, I was young and lonely. I could read a novel anywhere whilst, swinging my daughter in the play park, on the bus, walking through the park stepping in dog poop because I wasn't looking. We also read a lot of Newspapers and Magazines which kind of worked like social media. I had the radio on at home all the time for company. I was distracted. Not sure what my point is really. Just that well before digitisation we struggled to be present as parents.
Yes. Love this. Digital Minimalism is a great book.
Katherine, I brought up your blog last night during a family dinner and was surprised to receive a bristled and confrontational response. The main concern that was brought up was how do we prepare children to exist in a tech saturated world - someone mentioned that if you don’t let your teens use smartphones then they will not be prepared for the “real world” as adults where jobs increasingly rely on smartphones. How would you respond to that claim?
Thanks for these little reminders!
What counts as social media? I read some substacks, do my email, and look at some select news feeds, but do not have Facebook, Instagram, X, Bluesky, Tiktok, and only watch Netflix about 2 hours a week. Yet I am on screen a lot, both writing and reading. If it is screen time that counts I am over the limit. It was always over the limit in academia - we did everything on a screen toward the end of my career, including grading "papers". As a result I am convinced I was teaching incorrectly. But what is the alternative within the present system? At this point I would have to go outside the system entirely to teach effectively, especially in environmental science and agriculture. Perhaps school is part of the problem? Were Ivan Illich and Paulo Freire correct about real education? For those who have never read these two I recommend them highly - along with "Last Child in the Woods".