Recently, I decided to see if I could get through the entire day without using a screen for anything other than work related purposes. While I was able to do it, it didn’t happen without some form of alternative that’s fun and engaging.
There’s something magical about video games, videos on social media and the internet in general that makes it hard to live without. Video games give immersive challenges that make you have to react quickly, strategize and aim in real time to hit targets and avoid things moving at you, and the world building can make you feel like you live in a completely different reality.
Social media videos are basically one inside joke and they teach me facts that I’m 90% sure I wouldn’t have learned anywhere else, such as how even though South Korea has the most golfers per capita, most golfers there play on simulators instead of real courses or how Naples, Italy has the same climate as LA despite being at the same latitude and altitude as New Haven, Connecticut. The function of the search bar in general is great because it can answer pretty much any question you have in less than a tenth of a second. If you want to find out a tip to get you to win more games in Prop Hunt, you’re a few hundred wiggling of the fingers away.
To make it through the day, I did both things I needed to do and some things I wanted to do. The thing I wanted to do was read my book about the career and personal life of future NBA Hall of Famer LeBron James. As big of a LeBron fan as I am, I can’t read more than 5 pages a day, as there are a ton of words per page and I already know 70% of what’s in the book.
Books don’t update and they don’t require you to do anything other than look at words and turn the pages. There’s no talent that reading a book requires, and I enjoy things that take talent. The thing I had to do was study for an anatomy class. I was so desperate for something to do that I considered studying exciting. While the subject is interesting, as my goal is to become a strength and conditioning coach, a lot of it doesn’t have to do with my goal and there are still other things I’d rather do than memorize words.
When I was at Catalina Sea Camp over the summer at ages 15, 16 and 17, the no phone rule was tolerable because there were things that challenged my body, gave me things to compete with others in, or gave me breathtaking views, or a combination of the three, such as kayaking, sailing, ping pong, rock climbing, scuba diving, hiking—which isn’t really competitive unless you come up with a game like who can go from rock to rock without touching the dirt in between—nine-square, football and cooking.
There were opportunities to socialize with other people through these activities. However, even with all those exciting things to do, I still felt myself wanting to show people my stats on Brawl Stars or random objects that looked like Among Us characters or words that sounded like a famous person’s name, like a picture of Walter “Walta” White connected by an arrow to the country named Malta.
