A Summer Challenge
Can you substitute time online with real life activities this summer?
This summer, can you cut your screen time in half?
You probably have a few questions and any number of excuses. Let me back up a bit.
Summer is coming, and with it longer days, more varying schedules, and, usually, a bit of boredom. In between the vacations, the practices, the bookending holidays of Memorial Day and Labor day, lie stretches of time wide open without school pressing its demands upon you. Even if you’re out of school and have no one in your household involved in school, the summer days themselves are longer and bring with them more time. Time is one thing we all wish we had more of. How many different ways have you finished the sentence “If I only had more time…” just within the past week? And here comes summer, offering us exactly that, and like so many wishes granted, it turns out to be not quite as satisfactory as we thought. That delicious looking extra serving of daylight turns out to come served with a large dose of boredom.
Boredom gets a bad rap. In and of itself, it’s actually good for us. It draws us out into creativity, resourcefulness, consideration, meditation. It pushes us to try new things or chew on new ideas. But the fact that it is uncomfortable makes us want to avoid it at all costs. Many of us cope with the boredom of summer by packing our days with scheduled activity after scheduled activity. Flying from this camp to that vacation to this extracurricular and on, we create a whirlwind even busier than that of the school year, so that by the time September rolls around, the scheduled and predictable confines of the school routine are felt as a relief. If you choose not to stuff your schedule, another and even easier solution to boredom remains: screen time.
This addicting antidote to boredom is so prevalent today that you probably don’t even think about it anymore. I know I don’t. Before I’ve even had a chance to recognize that I am bored, I have already pulled out my phone and opened up an app without ever consciously deciding to. This is true all year round, of course. Whenever there is a minute or two that requires some patience, perseverance, ingenuity, or creativity, the itch to pull out a phone and pour my energy there instead is so strong that it scratches itself before I can even think to deny it. With longer days and more time for boredom to creep in, it is only too easy to waste all our extra golden hours of summer trying to avoid boredom by scrolling.
But as stated above, boredom is good for us, and screens themselves are proving to be worse and worse for us. They take a huge toll on your mental health. They lower your attention span. They suck up your time. They increase loneliness. And all of this is worse for our kids. It’s hard to look these stats full in the face because screen time is addicting and easy, and the alternative is swimming against both the current of your desires and the current of culture. “Everybody is on their phones all the time.” “It will be weird if I’m not!” “I have so many things I have to do on my phone.” “I simply can’t leave my phone inside or at home.” “It just feels impossible.” But summer is near, and it provides a whole host of opportunities to us if we are willing to swap screen time for other things. In fact, summer offers so many better, easy options with which to fill our time, that instead of thinking just “Can I lower my screen time?” you can also ask “Can I fill this time with something I’d rather do anyway?”
What’s your average screen time per day? Can you cut it in half this summer? Doing so requires a plan: deciding what things you will still use screens for, when you will allow yourself to use them, when and where you will not allow them, and making a list of other things you want to spend your time on instead. Those things could look like going on a walk every day, phone free. It could be reading some books on your endless to-be-read stack. It could be trying out a new restaurant, cooking a new meal, starting a garden, or biking new trails. It could be organizing in person get-togethers with your friends to hang out and chat face-to-face, without phone distractions. It could be reinstating a tradition of family meal times where everyone is fully present with their focus. It could be starting a new tradition of bonfires on Friday nights, or Monday board game nights, or hiking and kayaking outings on Saturdays. Go to the pool, or a ball game, or a bonfire, and leave the phone in the car. You could try a new physical activity that you have never made time for, but have always thought would be fun. You can stretch your creative muscles by making something beautiful: knitting a scarf, baking cookies, decorating your house, playing piano, planting flowers. You could learn a new skill, or pick up a new hobby. It can even be sitting on the porch in the evening and just letting yourself be still with your boredom and watch as it morphs into new thoughts and revelations.
Remember, it’s much easier to accomplish goals if they are laid out on paper and broken down into manageable steps. It’s also easier if you have a good reason backing them, and a companion to do them with you. The temptation to just pull out your phone when handed extra time might always be a strong one, but think of the glorious times when you have a get together with friends and never even remember to pull out your phone once? I think we’d all prefer more times like that this summer. So write down your list of screen restrictions, and write down your list of summer activity to-dos, and let’s see how many we can cross off before September.