It took me a recent conversation with a close friend of mine to realize that I am online a little too much—and I mean I am connected literally all the time. My coursework, my Instagram groupchat with my friends, my mobile games and my nightly doomscrolls…Yeah, I hate getting reminders of all that on Sunday mornings. That egregiously high number is embarrassing and yet it is the norm for all of us. Everything is expedited and put on a platform: dating, shopping, third spaces generally…I can go on.
The average adult is expected to spend years of their life on social media. We also can’t really gauge how long we have with our lives off our screens. It’s hard to fathom, but that puts it into perspective—we really need to start appreciating our lives off screen more! That’s something I fully intend on doing myself.
One thing that same friend introduced me to was journaling. I, like many other chronic procrastinators, told myself that I’ll start—at some point. I have piles of notebooks, waiting to be recipients of heartfelt spills of emotion and word-vomit. The fact that many of these notebooks stayed blank for so long is baffling! When I first made the steps to limit my screen usage, I realized that I really was turning to my phone for a distraction from my thoughts and day-to-day; which really, we all collectively tend to do.
We’re under the impression that we are constantly busy and don’t have time in the day for the things we love. That’s only fuelled by the fact that we collectively have a tendency to scroll on our breaks. When I started to address that, making time for journaling instead, I realized that the screen really inhibited my abilities to reflect. It’s so important to find an outlet in order to regulate our emotions—and fully allow ourselves to slow down. Journaling is one of those hobbies that allows you to do that—given how everything feels so fast paced.
Adjacent to that is sketching. When I became more cognizant about my blue-light intake, I realized how much more creatively invigorated I was. I don’t think this is exclusively a me thing, either. Many find that being in a good head-space directly correlates with the quality of their work. Limiting vehicles of psychological stress aid in that directly. During the summer, when I was both literally and figuratively left to my own devices, my screen time was, blatantly put, horrifying. Around the same time, I found that I had the worst art block ever—and literally no ideas backing any sort of creation; and I like to call myself a creative. Given I’ve now tried limiting the one distraction in my day alongside my workload, I’m happy with the art I’m producing.
There are a lot of activities you can indulge in that don’t require a screen, but I’m going to list out one more that I intend on getting into during the upcoming summer. Upcycling my clothes. For one, we have way more clothes than we think; and I’m guilty of buying into the belief that I need more. What happens to those clothes I no longer wear? The ones that don’t fit? The ones I deem “out of style?” That’s the thing, I’ve been so wasteful. By changing that I’m killing two birds with one stone. While this requires some research online, most of my time will be spent hands-on transforming the clothes that were once no longer in use. This is a great way to do something about those skinny jeans in your closet; I know the pair I haven’t worn in a while will become a cute skirt when I’m done with them. It’s a great way for me to engage in something off-screen, and I’ll have something that I’ve made and can be proud of!
There’s importance in stepping away and taking it slow. Putting my phone away more often has changed things for me—a lot. I’m more present, I’m reading a lot more, and I’m cultivating positive habits. Everything around me feels a lot less bleak now, too. This is not to say being online is inherently bad. It’s important to stay in touch, and of course—stay informed. It is also important to maintain your well-being, and the best way to do that is establishing that balance.