"A sense of clarity"
"A sense of clarity"
By Paul
by
In 2019 I was part of a Summer Men’s Group at my church. We read the book The Good and Beautiful Life by James Bryan Smith. Each chapter had a challenge associated with it that we would do and discuss when we met each week. One week the challenge was to not use Social Media for 2 days. I thought that was too short of a time to see any benefit, so I decided to delete Facebook off of my phone and not use it for a week. I liked not checking it all the time and not getting mad at stupid stuff (much of it political) my “friends” posted. A week turned into a month, then a year, this July marks 5 years with no Social Media!
Unfortunately, I was still addicted to my smartphone. I worked a data entry job, and I convinced myself that I needed my phone to listen to YouTube videos, podcasts, and audio books to make it through the day. I was always itching to get my next entertainment hit. YouTube was like a slot machine. I would pull the lever and see what new video I didn’t know I wanted would come across my feed. I did a pretty good job of not being on my phone with my kids around, but there was a portion of my brain not present. It just wanted to get back to the phone and the next video. The summer of 2023 I got a promotion at work. My new job was significantly more interesting to me and required more thought and attention. My biggest reason I “needed” my phone was removed. My brother, knowing how I felt about my smartphone, suggested that we both get Light Phones. I had no excuse not to, so we pulled the trigger. Getting rid of my smartphone felt like coming out of a mental fog. A year into life without it and I can’t imagine a scenario where I would ever go back. It is not just the time on the device I got back, but the time thinking and wishing I could be on it. I didn’t realize how much I thought about my phone until it was gone and I didn’t have a reason to think about it.
This summer to my astonishment, my wife suggested we try life without a TV in our house. This was something I wanted to try for a long while, but I didn’t want to force it on my wife (who had historically been opposed to the idea). Our 4 year old son had been asking for more and more screen time and with a 1 year old who wasn’t sleeping at night, it was so easy to turn a show on at 6AM and fall back asleep on the couch. Our son would end up watching way more TV than we intended and would throw a fit when we turned it off – regardless of how long he had been watching. I (as the one who got up with him in the morning) adjusted our routine and only let him watch TV on Saturday mornings, but he would still watch 30 min in the afternoon to give my wife a chance to put our daughter down and have a moment to herself. He would cry and beg to watch more and ask me every morning if we could watch a show. It was a struggle. After our TV went on “Vacation” (My wife wrote a letter to our son from the TV saying that it needed a break and was going on vacation for a while. Our son was very concerned with the logistics of this seeing as the TV didn’t have arms or legs. How was it going to go anywhere?), he would play with his toys better and longer. He stopped asking to watch TV and only occasionally would mention that he missed the TV. We did get a projector so we could occasionally have a family movie night. We don’t do them often but try to make an event out of it. We make popcorn, blanket forts, have friends over, get candy, the whole nine yards. For the time being we can handle that without letting it take control of our lives – which is where I am now drawing the line with our family’s tech usage.
That brings us to my current fight, YouTube. Without a smartphone YouTube lost a lot of its pull, but it is too good of a product – too sweet a master. It is easy to get lost in it on my computer or iPad. I have done multiple week and month fasts from YouTube, but when the fast is over I binge everything I missed. At least once a month I stay up way too late watching it, or even worse, getting sucked into a death scroll on YouTube Shorts. I feel the need to declare I am done for good, but I am scared to fully commit. I know my quality of life without it is so much better, but it tastes so sweet. I think it is a testament to the power and allure of the machine that even someone who sees it for what it is, has gotten rid of Social Media, Smartphone, and TV is drawn to it, thinking, “this time I will be able to control it.”
In the midst of writing this, I feel a sense of clarity. I have decided to go at least 1 year without watching YouTube by myself. My minor caveat is that watching it with a group is allowed. Is it the perfect solution? Probably not. Next July I will reassess. My hope is I will not desire it.
It can feel very isolating fighting the draw of the machine. Everyone around is plugged in. I have really appreciated reading the stories and triumphs of others as they navigate the strange time we live. Peco and Ruth, thank you for being an encouragement and putting to words many of the feelings I have been wrestling with over the past few years. You have definitely strengthened my resolve to continue fighting and striving to live a life that is more human.
-Paul
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