I don’t know about you, but this year’s finals season didn’t just sneak up on me: it jump-scared me in a way no A24 movie could never. Amidst the piles of homework and the weeks worth of material that is in desperate need of studying, I have found myself more and more drawn to the endless time pit that is social media. Why would I ever choose reading a text book over watching a stream of endless brain rot that only our generation could truly have the imagination to come up with?
We all have our internet secret pleasures, whether that be LetterBox or Instagram Reels. Yet what strikes me is that within a time period where I have the most collective amount of work to get done, I find an inconceivable amount of time to spend on my phone. And it isn’t just me.
This answer is simple, but the solution is far more complicated. In reality, people will reach for their phones when they are busy to escape the stress—if only temporarily. A wanting to escape combined with the addictive qualities of our phones (that we have collectively decided to accept, and then ignore) creates a habit quickly. Soon, every time the homework seems to be too much, boom, the phone comes out.
For some people, this is an inconvenient time sucker, but for others this addictive habit truly prevents them from writing another paragraph for that essay that is due un-shockingly, at midnight. We all know one more video isn’t going to fix anything, and yet for many of us, we end up clicking it anyway. Sealing the fate of our attention spans, or so we are led to believe. Up to this point, I have been rather pessimistic. This wasn’t in lack of hope, but in honesty of explaining a situation that many of us face and yet when we go to describe it to others we are often judged. We are blamed for being the first generation of iPad kids, despite it being our elders who created an online environment built to get us hooked.
This finals season, I dare you to put that phone down. Not because it’s healthier. Not because it’s addicting. Not because there is a backpack full of work that needs to get done, but because putting our phones down is a form of rebellion. Choosing to break free of algorithms that use greedy tactics to monetize off of us. I will be limiting my screen time because the tests that I need to study for, the essays I need to write and the chapters I need to read aren’t just tests, essays, or pages. They are defiance. They are saying that we are here, here to replace holding our phones to hold our futures. So, yes, go touch some grass. Do some of the homework that needs to be done… And then maybe reward yourself with a Peeta Mellark edit.
