Screen Time?
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Lately, I started noticing that I was unusually drained and was extensively out of my creative spirit. Moreover, I stopped reading books (my legitimate favorite thing to do), more like lost the will to read to such an extent that I couldn’t read more than two chapters and had to literally force myself to read and convince myself internally that it was just a “reading slump” and that I was fine. I was not.
Some more things that I started noticing were my behavioral patterns which were more unusual than they had ever been, I’m talking grumpy mood swings, losing the will to get up and go to classes let alone pay attention in classes. The first thought I had in the morning as soon as I woke up was, “Oh God when am I gonna get into the bed again.” Which if you think about it, is not normal. Like at all.
Adding to this, I wasn’t really exercising properly, I was probably over-working myself, and I wasn’t really being present and “in the moment”. What I was doing plentiful of was scrolling through Instagram. And the worst part is that I knew this could be the reason in the back of my mind but like any other person, refused to acknowledge it. Things got worse over time, I wasn’t in my moment, or well for that matter, anywhere; all I did was wake up, go to college to voluntarily shut my my brain off, and somehow survive through the day home, SLEEP, force myself to wake up and complete my assignments, stay up till 2 am, scroll, rinse, repeat. That is quite possibly the worst outtake anyone could have on their daily routine.
What did this do to me? Well 🙂
- Drain my energy levels.
- It worsened my mood.
- This put me in a mental spiral of having an inertia to leave the house and go out with my friends.
- Blocked my thinking process.
- Robbed myself of my most beloved hobbies.
- This led me to develop a slightly toxic behavior 😐
- Dropped my concentration levels to about 30 seconds.
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Getting to the point, the cause
I obviously asked my mom what was wrong with me and like any other typical Indian parent would say, “It’s cause you’re on that damned phone all the time.” Hate to say it, but she was right.
So finally after weeks I gave this a thought and came up with a revelation:
As an engineering major, I am always in front of some type of screen so it only got more interesting to figure out the way was I doing what I was doing.
And then, it hit me:
The screen time I was exposing myself to was playing the biggest role in wiring my brain and its actions. In simpler words, my attention span correlated to the timing of the content I was watching. 1 hour-long informative and attention-concentrating video vs 30-second Instagram reels.
Whenever I was watching something that had my attention completely for a substantial amount of time, my energy levels throughout the day were more stable as opposed to when I spent my day sluggishly lying around scrolling through Instagram for god knows how long.
Scientifically speaking, watching something, may it be a movie or a documentary that keeps your attention for even 60% of its running time is still enough for your brain to process the information and store it without you feeling all worked up over it. Now talking about Instagram Reels, they are designed in a way to for your dopamine levels to spike and hold your attention for a shorter span so that you keep scrolling more and more while pushing yourself closer towards the rabbit hole. What this does negatively is that since you have been scrolling for the same shorter amount of time with a whole lot of transitions and background music, it basically doesn’t give your brain enough time to register what you have been watching ultimately reaching a point where your brain doesn’t have anything to think about. This is also the point where our body starts showing the negative side-effects of all that dopamine making you all worked up, hyperactive, and well, clueless of your surroundings. What this also does is that it makes you feel alienated towards sitting still, in peace and constantly needing some kind of stimulus around.
The Solution:
The solution, believe it or not, is literally doing the things you weren’t doing while you were stuck up in this. Go get out of the house and get some coffee, make yourself a cozy meal and watch your favorite movie, hang out with your friends, laugh with them until your stomach hurts, read that book on your bed-table, play with your dog, play with your neighbor’s dog if you don’t have one, get sporty, get dressed up, touch some grass (literally), buy yourself flowers, read the newspaper, call your long distance bestie, get artistic, go around taking pictures with a camera if you have one, finish up your assignments without any external stimulus around you, just keep your phone awayyyyy.
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Points to Remember:
- NEVER SCROLL BEFORE GOING TO BED, OR WHEN YOU’RE SAD.
- Hyperactivity can be calmed down by these 3 easy steps:
- Name Three colors you can see around
- Name the # sounds you can hear at this moment
- Breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 8, and exhale for 7.
- Whenever you feel that you’re getting sucked into that rabbit hole, get up and leave the room and leave your phone inside the room.
- You’ve got this ;)
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