Is Creativity Dying?
By Maisie McMorrow
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “It’s those d*mn phones,” but what if it is actually those d*mn phones? According to the National Institute of Medicine, the average screen time for a phone user is 3 hours and 46 minutes, and I know for many of us (including me), our usage is much higher. So, let’s say you are the average person: you spend 3 hours and 46 minutes every day of your life on a screen, and you live for around 80 years. This would have meant that you have spent 110,087.37 hours or 12.56 years of your life looking at your phone. Now, no, I’m not going to go on and tell you how all phones are bad–blah, blah, blah. But for me, this statistic was really eye-opening. It urged me to wonder about the last time I bought or did something without being influenced by something on my phone. When was the last time I wore something that I hadn’t seen on social media or that reminded me of something I saw? Even when I would thrift, I would make a Pinterest board of what I wanted to find. Was I actually ever creative, or was I just copying others and marketing it as my own creativity?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines creativity as “the use of imagination or original ideas to create something” or as “the ability to produce ideas and objects that are both novel and useful.” These days, it seems there’s barely a use for creativity; we have ChatGPT to tell us anything we could ever need to know. We have social media with a million ads showing us how to dress. We have companies that will ship you all the meals you need. Is there any space left for original ideas? We have everything we could need to survive already picked out perfectly for us. Is creativity dying from laziness?
Now, not all hope is lost. You know who still has creativity? Children. We can learn something from kids. I’m a Child Development major, so I’ve spent many hours observing and working with kids. Every time I leave, I gain a new perspective on life. Children see something as simple as a rock as one of the most fascinating objects ever. To them, it could be a tiny spaceship for ants, a precious gem, or even a blank canvas for them to paint. As I’ve spent more time with kids, I realized there are a few reasons that their creativity flourishes. Kids don’t have phones to show them trends on how they are supposed to act, look, or even eat. They do not care about the judgment from others, which is why they can be so creative. So, is the problem really those d*mn phones, or is it what we choose to access through the phones? Is the reason creativity is dying due to the need to conform to societal standards?
One argument to be made is that phones kill the creativity that stems from boredom; no one is bored, and I suspect we don’t know how to be. Every time I feel even a bit bored, I reach for my phone. We have been conditioned to reach for our phones, and in doing that, we have lost the creativity from being bored. When our parents were children, they didn’t have phones, so when they were bored, they would just go outdoors or figure something out. Nowadays, we plan out our creativity; we become too structured in our thinking and our creating. We don’t leave things up to chance or imagination anymore.
One of my most engaging psychology professors stood in front of our class one day and began to cry. She said she was so sad for us that we have all lost our ability to create. She told us how creativity is dying, and she hopes for us to all find a bit of creativity in our lives. This really stuck with me; it was one of those moments you can’t forget. Since then, I have been trying to live more creatively. I’ve tried making homemade lavender syrup for my matcha (it still needs perfecting), taking a watercolor class through the Cal Poly craft center, or even just sitting outside journaling without my phone or music. I’ve begun to see that we as humans possess a power in creativity that is so magnificent.Â
Now, I can’t really tell you if it’s the phones, the need to conform, the death of boredom, or if we as humans are just really lazy, but I can tell you this: You have a million possibilities at your fingertips at every moment–you can be whoever you want. So, let’s choose, as humankind, to be a little more creative.