Smoking, drinking, and screen time
There’s a little message box that pops up on my laptop every now and then telling me about my “screen time.” It just told me that my “screen time” was up 17% this week. Is this some obligatory warning to turn off my computer for my health, kinda like the warnings on alcohol and tobacco products? And how, exactly, am I supposed to turn it off?
I’ve recently sold a house in one state, bought a house in another, managed a mortgage, registered for water, gas, electricity and internet services—and all these actions required that I do things online. Repeatedly. I had to sign documents, create accounts, and manage payments, all without interacting with another human being. It is the way of the world now. So why does my computer want to annoy me with details about how much “screen time” I’m putting in? What choice do I have? Believe me, if I could handle these things in person, I would. In most cases, it simply isn’t an option.
I guess, since I write a lot, I could give up composing on a keyboard and go back to paper and pencil. But it’s way less efficient. I definitely type faster than I can write with a utensil between my fingers. And my errors can more easily be edited—my thoughts rearranged on the page. Besides, if I resort to writing longhand can I get my columns to my editor in a timely manner via snail mail? (I tried that with an escrow payment during my real estate adventures: I paid for overnight mail delivery, but it took the check two weeks to arrive at the real estate office—and Realtors were getting antsy.) Besides, I suspect composing written documents on a screen is probably not as taxing as bonafide online activities.
I do play word games online. My mom used to do all the crossword and word jumble puzzles in the newspaper, even while descending into the throes of Alzheimer’s, and I think it served her well. But she did the puzzles with a pencil—because they were in her physical, foldable, crinkly daily newspaper.
I read the news online. And when I can’t stand the headlines, I do puzzles. More screen time. And this kind of screen time requires the constant tuning out of ads flashing on either side of the puzzle. I could pay money to have the ads shut off, but that feels like a ransom, and I refuse to capitulate.
I do believe screen time is messing with my brain, though. Ideas continually pop into my head—like the ads online—interrupting the train of thought upon which my actions were focused. I walk into a room to complete a task, am interrupted by a marginal thought, and poof, my purpose is gone. I must take additional seconds to recall why I entered the room in the first place. My brain is feeding me too much information. Just like my computer. If I reduce my screen time, will this phenomenon go away?
It’s a conundrum. I don’t want to give up the things I like about my computer and my phone in order to be healthier while I do all the online things that the world now requires—but that aggravates the spit out of me. So, I just keep elevating the overall measure of my screen time. Maybe I’ll relax once I’m online 24/7 and the notices have no elevation to report. (Or maybe I just need a drink and a smoke to ease the aggravation of screen time reports.)