Entertainment Addiction,
and Getting Better

I struggle with my relationship with my phone and with digital entertainment. To be honest, I can't remember a time in my life when I've felt free from content and notifications.

Many of the most salient memories of my childhood involve a screen. I can easily relive the excitement of unboxing a brand new Gameboy Advanced SP on my seventh birthday. I can remember innumerable school nights in bed, one eye closed while with the other I scrolled sites like 9gag and iFunny until I saw the earliest ribbon of sunrise and, panicking, tried to sleep for a couple of hours.

Growing up, my relationships with my friends majorly required screen time: YouTube, XBox Live, gaming PCs, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Skype, et cetera. I had rich, fulfilling online friendships via Minecraft and DayZ servers, but the aggregate online time required to sustain those relationships was huge.

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In undergraduate school, I began to notice how little firm control I had over how often I'd reach for a screen when I was idle. During bus rides or while the microwave was running; before lectures started or while my code was compiling; in between homework practice problems or chapters of books I was trying to read for fun. My brain resisted getting offline so dramatically that I'd unconsciously reach for my phone and open Reddit if I had practically any unallocated time.

The malignance of this behavior was hard to notice because I wasn't unusual. All of my friends seemed to do the same thing in their own unique ways.

Some people, however, demonstrated a startling ability to ignore their phones, including social media and other similar distractions. Those people were dismayingly focused on their work and passions, getting better and getting ahead of other people who were more conventional content consumers.

Many of my friends were these kinds of people. I saw how they did things and wondered initially if I was simply more distractable or less disciplined than they were. They could cruise through their work, stay on pre-planned schedules, and had time for clubs, and I was barely able to keep up with them on the coursework axis.

My solution at the time was to work harder for longer, and to sacrifice non-school distractions, mostly sleep and parties.

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