My take on our disregard for our growing “addiction.”
No matter how young or old you may be, you are bound to spend anywhere from half an hour to a couple of hours on electronics. Whether it’s for work or for entertainment doesn’t really make a difference. In the end it all contributes to screen time.
Although the internet can prove to be an indispensable source of information, it seems that most of use spend out time on it watching cat videos and playing games. Granted both the former and the latter can be useful methods of venting stress and rewinding after a long day every now and then.
However we don’t just use our phones “every now and then”. We check them right after waking up and before turning in for the night. We spend any spare time we have on our hands scrolling through social media sites or texting.
We play games rather excessively and can’t seem to sit still without access to electronic gadgets.
At this point we live in two worlds as two people; who we are in real life and who we are online.
We spend hours on end liking other peoples posts and we see only the best versions of them. Moreover, even though we know and understand the aforementioned fact, we still compare ourselves to them and hold ourselves to unreachable standards.
Insecurities that we didn’t even know existed show up every other day after discovering another person’s “sharp cheekbones” and “shiny eyes” or their “superman-like strength” and “art skills that resemble those of Van Gogh.”
We know that all of this happens. We know the obsessive mess it makes us. We know how much time we spend in that “other world.”
We understand that it’s time we could have used biking with friends or cooking with family. We understand that it is time that we will never be able to recover.
We understand that our so-called “addiction” to our phones may affect our physical well-being too. We understand that our eyesight may degrade and that we may face stiff necks and sore backs.
We know and understand all of this. Yet we make no move to rid ourselves of our “addictions.” We choose to chuck all we know and understand into a corner in the back of our minds. If it’s out of mind, it’s not a cause for worry. Or so we think.