I came across a TikTok the other day of a girl enjoying a “no-scroll morning” in the library, “feeding” her brain. Her “unplugged” time was supplemented by coloring pages, sudoku books, and journals galore. In fact, the 2.5-minute video featured three separate types of journals: a thought journal, a “junk” journal, and a friendship journal.
Over the course of two hours, the creator spent 15 minutes writing in journal #1, 10 minutes completing a Sudoku puzzle, 10 minutes coloring, 30 minutes reading, 15 minutes scrapbooking in journal #2, and 15 minutes decorating journal #3.
At first, I was inspired. I had never considered going to the library to work on my hobbies. It makes sense: going to the library gets you out of the house and provides fewer distractions. Plus, her matcha looked cute in that colorful Bink water bottle.
Yet, as I thought about it more, questions began to surface. Does two hours of “unplugged” time in the morning mean the rest of the day will be “plugged”? Why would we have to go to the library in order to get off our phones?
Most importantly, despite the recent rise of analog, “offline” hobbies, does filming ourselves engaging in them and redirecting our attention to a new one every 15 minutes defeat the whole point? Is this response to our increasingly digital lives helping or hurting?
As I rewatched the video, it became more apparent that this creator was cramming enrichment activities into the two allotted hours without dedicating much real time or commitment to any one in particular. Is this much better than spending two hours on our phones?
This TikTok is just one example of a larger movement toward seemingly performative offline time. But what issue does this phenomenon boil down to? Put simply, mental activity is becoming optional. For many college students, the rise of AI poses a tense internal struggle: why would I write this essay on my own when I have the technology to write it for me at my fingertips? We are becoming unburdened of the cognitive demands of schoolwork, professional work, and everyday problem-solving.
As one creator observes, this shift is not unprecedented. Mental activity is following dutifully in the footsteps of physical activity. Way back when, the Industrial Revolution made physical activity largely optional. The manual labor that was once integral to survival was absorbed by machines, and humans were relieved of those obligations. Over the centuries, we found ways to seek out this newly optional activity. A long line of daily stretching, calisthenics, and aerobics has brought us to where we are today: a culture that praises daily exercise, whether running, playing a sport, or hitting the gym.
One stark difference remains, however, between the emergence of optional physical activity and that of optional mental activity. Today, we live in an overwhelmingly consumerist society where it’s typical to purchase trinkets, gadgets, and everyday items like clothing in bulk.
Just as we pay for gym memberships and fitness equipment, we’re now paying for mental stimulation. But we’re overdoing it. We buy a brick to lock up our phones, a tote bag to carry our craft projects, a sudoku book, and three different journals.
We’ve turned our attention to the matter of “unplugging”—a worthy cause, to be sure. But unplugging shouldn’t have to mean a material investment in coloring supplies or journals. As we know and as we have known for centuries, the tools to “feed” our brains are right in front of us: writing that essay without AI, thinking through a problem you’re stumped by without asking ChatGPT. We don’t need to go to the library just to reconnect with thinking—we need to challenge ourselves to tackle the problems at hand.