Almost living…
When the workday ends and I shut off the laptop, I habitually turn to the windows to see how the rest of the day feels. How will I spend my evening in the remaining hours of light… … … …never mind, it’s already dark and the only light I see outside is from the streetlamps. In this moment, usually, I’m alone and I will be alone for at least another hour if not the rest of the evening. An aimlessness pushes at the edges of my consciousness. It whispers words of emptiness “nothing to do”, “nothing ahead”, “no one to talk to”. Sadness looms like a heavy cloud on the horizon of my mood. I flee like a creature compelled to seek shelter. I do not want this feeling. I do not want this experience.
It’s a distortion, the voice and the sadness. I’m not lacking in things to do or people to see, and I rather enjoy my own company in the peace of solitude. It’s just not true that there’s nothing and no one, nor is it true, as I am inclined to feel, that the encroaching sadness is endless. These are passing states unless I get caught in the cycle of perpetuating them, which I have done and is a problem.
Seeing the falsity inherent in the absoluteness of my perceptions of time spent alone, at night, in the dark, comes easy in the afternoon as I look at the periwinkle blooms on the rosemary plant outside my window. Averting these feelings doesn’t seem like an insurmountable problem, but I know it hits different at the end of the day after night falls. Then I will become that creature scurrying away to hide from the peril I feel and fear.
Quickly my right hand moves clicking open the web browser, left hand already at the keyboard selecting a URL, a path I can access almost as fast as thought to a diversion, a lulling comfort, a proxy for company. My favorite, YouTube, gives me live content, recorded content, music, shows, information, ambience. Sometimes even that’s not enough, and my hand reaches again for the mouse. This time I’m going through my Steam library. What should I play? Something to relax, or entertain, or engage? Probably something familiar that iterates well. I know the rules of game play and I fall right in. There’s no loneliness here, no fear of a big nothing that refuses to fill, no problem of being alone. At least until the show ends, or I exit the game, or the power goes out. So I keep the lights on. I queue up multiple videos. I jump from one game to the next. I have backup reruns or music in case there’s not much content online today. I will do this until I’m tried of the game I’m playing and have been losing at it for at least an hour, until I’m bored of the shows and annoyed by the music. Then I will turn off all but one screen, put on a rerun comedy show to listen to while I get ready for bed, and at least I know it’s there as I read a book and go to sleep. Morning comes, time to check email and YouTube again, then go to work all day on screens.
It’s pretty bad, right? To my credit, I don’t have screens in the bedroom. I let the comedy show play distantly in the living room. I do go out and get exercise. I have a garden (a balcony garden, but still I tend to it). I have friends who I spend many screenless hours with at a time. And I have some non-screen dependent hobbies: pets, reading, music, creative projects, etc. Just to say, my head isn’t glued into the screens permanently, but I spend a lot of time there by necessity, by desire, and by compulsion.
Necessary screentime…
My work exists almost entirely on a computer. Meetings, email, and assorted applications are continually in use some 8 hours a day or more just for the job. I live distant from my family and use video conferencing to communicate with them regularly. Personal email, an obvious inclusion here, shows up at the bookends of my day. Some of the hobbies and pursuits (like this one) have a certain amount of screentime requirements. Almost any planning or appointment booking as a function of life must be done on a screen.
Desired screentime…
Entertainment and casual hobbies or pursuits account for a smaller proportion of my screentime. I tried to stop playing computer games, but I enjoy it and my life feels less without it. I get something out gaming that, for me, is better than watching TV or a movie and a closer cousin to reading a book. It can be rewarding to play some really well done games. I’m not planning on giving that up. YouTube also has some really excellent content. It beats TV and most movies. Getting around to movies, I watch them increasingly rarely. I find them again far superior to most TV but lesser than games or YouTube and not even in class with books. Other hobbies, like planning trips, rabbit-hole internet adventures into random topics, making videos, editing photos, etc. are intermittent but can pile up the screentime when they occur. Desired screentime should be manageable if I can discern when I’m getting value and when I’m not.
Compulsive screentime…
That impulse to check my email first thing in the morning, the want for background music or podcast chatter, the clicking into next video, next game, next page long after my interest and attention have waned, that’s compulsive screentime. As with everything that becomes unconscious activity, I have more self-control over compulsive behavior in the morning and can often resist the temptation of using my screens. Evening is where compulsive screentime really gets me. The day has been filled with lights and sounds and animation! Now I’m just supposed to sit in the quiet dark? Nope! No thanks. The contrast is too stark. I can’t do it. I won’t do it. Give me something nice, something fun or funny to let me wind down easy. But the problem is, it never really winds me down. Sometimes it winds me up. Gaming especially is a problem for winding me up while giving me the impression that I’m relaxing. There’s a positive feedback loop at work here (you know, where the mic picks up the amp picking up the mic until it blows out).
Residuals and reconstruction…
Our entire planet went through something awful five years ago. I’m sorry to bring it up, but it’s relevant. Some habits, behaviors, and customs are residuals of the change wrought from responses to Covid19 and some are a product of a reconstructed world. I work from home now 4 out of 5 days a week. Whether I’m in the office or at home 100% of my meetings are virtual. Even in the office I barely see another person. It’s practically impossible to do anything anymore without creating an account and syncing it up and verifying it and creating a password and username and managing your subscriptions and checking your spam folder.
For several years, where I live, social activities were quelled. If you wanted to be with people you had to be with them virtually. Adding insult to injury I’m pretty introverted anyway to the point where it can be almost attractive to not have to go out and be in groups and crowds. Hence I have developed many (too many) parasocial-type relationships with YouTubers, streamers, commentators, whatever you want to call these people. I’ve learned a lot from many of them. They’ve made me laugh. I’ve felt sad for them when they’ve lost pets or loved ones. I like them and apparently care about them. They don’t know me at all. They don’t know my name or anything about my life. It’s a “parasocial” relationship, i.e., like-social but not same as social in real life (irl).
I fall back on these parasocial relationships for companionship or even for ambient comforting noise (I’ve taken naps to the soothing voices of some of them). Maybe I needed them during the Covid19 times, but do I need them now? It sort of feels like I do.
When there’s as much fear and complexity, reliance and proxy need fulfillment as I have wrapped up in my use of screens, I know I need to proceed with caution. Ripping it away would not only be painful, but could provoke other unwanted behavior or may tank my mood, which can bottom out hard and takes so much work to recover. My interventions and remedies need to focus not on removing screentime, an impracticality, but on managing it to optimize benefits/needs and minimize over- and mis-use. Specifically, I will seek to manage:
- Blue light – using blue blocker glasses (probably will wait for sales)
- Over-stimulation at night – impose a gaming stop time; reduce to one monitor at gaming stop time
- Parasocial reliance – continue to observe and reflect on role of parasocial attachments; make adjustments to reduce parasocial engagement and increase irl engagement
- Avoidance of non-screen hobbies/activities/pursuits – plan more non-screen activities to move out of screentime into the three-dimensional world
A work in progress…
Screentime and isolation remain the more elusive challenges facing my winter appreciation revitalization project (10 Weeks of Winter). For now, I’m trying to understand the problems with too much screentime especially at night and address them in real time.
Dear reader: your input and suggestions are most welcome! Do you struggle with too much or too late at night screentime? What are your solutions?
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