Screen Time

The block of metal that I am writing this on is maybe the most valuable thing I own. Not just in the literal sense, but I don’t know if I can live my life without it. 

The rest of my possessions are more or less replaceable. I can always borrow headphones. I can buy a new toothbrush. I can order another hoodie. Just as long as I have my laptop.

If I need to do schoolwork, I pull up Blackboard.

If I want something to watch, I launch YouTube.

If I want to stay connected, I open my email. Or my texts. Instagram, too.

Every part of my day eventually passes through the 15-inch screen.

Walking into the campus library, you won’t find a soul reading a book. Instead, there are hundreds of people staring into glowing rectangles while they clack away at their keyboards. 

People my age spend, on average, over seven hours a day on a screen, and that number increases every year. Entire industries and livelihoods depend on squeezing every last digital moment out of you. It doesn’t matter if you’re being productive or watching cat videos, just as long as they can farm your data and churn it into ads to spit back at you.

I couldn’t put it down if I wanted to. My career is confined to Adobe software. I don’t own a single printed syllabus. I’ll scroll for an hour before I read a page of any book. Society values individuals based on productivity, but any productivity I have is meant to be saved, exported, and shared. It feels more accurate to say that my laptop owns me. 

Entire industries are built around this dependence. There are even industries dedicated to pulling you away. Opal, one of the most popular platforms that promises to cure your doomscrolling addiction, charges seven dollars a month for their service. Are people really paying money to divorce themselves from their own devices?

I have nightmares about spilling something on my keyboard or dropping the laptop too hard. If I was forced away from my screen, I would lose work, connection, and routine. I would lose a version of myself I don’t even understand.

Just four pounds of aluminum, and somehow most of my life fits inside it.