I get way too much screen time. I spend way too much time on my phone, computer, or watching TV. I'm on a primary care pediatrics rotation where I frequently talk about appropriate screen time for children (< 1 hr per day) and I can't help but feel like a huge hypocrite. The last time I got less than an hour of screen time in a day way probably back when I was a teenager and was camping out in the middle of a lake miles from any electronics.
Screens have become part of life for most people, so I'm hardly unique here, but my average day is probably about 75% screen time, if not more. It's a problem and one I'm definitely going to have trouble breaking. Realistically, I'm never going to be completely screen-free. I use screens for work, for school, for studying. It'd be impossible to function without screens in those situations.
However, there's a number of ways I can and should be cutting back on my screen time. First is with TV. I watch too much of it. I watch it reflexively. Don't even care if there's nothing on I want to watch, the TV is often there as background noise. We don't pay for cable either, so it's all Netflix or other streaming, not even something like the weather network or news.
Second is in keeping up with the world. The internet is great for getting news and discussing current topics, but it's also unbounded in these regards. There's always another viewpoint, another topic, another article that can be read. And I binge on this stuff. I don't think I'll ever stop this obsession with how the world works - it's part of why I went into medicine - but I would like to take some of these activities off-line. Once residency starts and I have actual money to spend, rather than a line of credit to increase, I'd like to start getting some print media sources. You know, actually pay for the information I get. If I can't break my information addiction, I can at least save myself some eyestrain while satisfying it.
Last and certainly not least - gaming. I like video games. And I have a history of video game compulsion if not outright addiction. I've probably spent about 10% of my total life - including time spent sleeping - playing one video game or another. My Steam collection has me at about 100 days of total playtime, which isn't too bad on its own, but neglects almost all of my major time-sinks. With certain games, I can waste an entire day without even realizing it. In the past, I've wasted far more than a day without realizing it. Sometimes days like this are benign or even helpful - a day off every once in a while is hardly a bad thing! But when it happens too often, happens when I really can't afford a day off, or happens without being planned, it just leads to more stress. Gaming is basically a hobby, and I need to be treating it like one, with regular, scheduled, and non-intrusive times set aside for it.
Getting more exercise and eating better were hard changes to make, but I think I've made a good start down that path. Cutting down on screen-time is going to be much, much more difficult.
Getting more exercise and eating better were hard changes to make, but I think I've made a good start down that path. Cutting down on screen-time is going to be much, much more difficult.
I enjoy all the same "bad habits" as you. As long as they aren't causing me to really neglect other aspects of my life, I don't think of them as bad habits at all! Especially if you are actually enjoying yourself while you're doing them. Certainly there are much worse things you could be doing with your free time. I don't think there is really that much of a difference reading the news on your laptop versus a hard copy, unless maybe you read before bed and have a hard time falling asleep. You can sign up for online subscriptions (I just recently decided to finally pay for the New York Times instead of changing devices when I got the notification that I had reached my 10 article per month limit - finally I am a real adult). The subscription is embarrassingly low cost.
ReplyDeleteThe main reason I am commenting, though, is: do you have any good steam game suggestions? :)
I think for me, the problem is that I let the screens take over and do start to neglect the other aspects of my life. I've made it this far compensating well enough, so I'll try not to be too hard on myself, but I can't deny that screens are holding me back from doing a few things I'd like to with my life.
DeleteFor Steam games, top recommendations in my library would be Bastion (and to a lesser extent, it's studio's follow-up game Transistor), Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness series, Ori and the Blind Forest, and more recently, Stardew Valley. Life Is Strange was also exceedingly well done, but very weird, dark, and definitely NSFW. Otherwise I'm trying to resist playing through the entire Mass Effect series again before Andromeda comes out and almost hoping Civilization 6 sucks so I don't get enveloped by yet another expansive strategy game!
Thanks for the recommendations! My friend also recommended Stardew Valley recently and my plan was to get at it after CaRMs is due :) I will definitely check the others out. If you want to try a fun indie game I highly recommend Don't Starve.
ReplyDeleteI've come across that one a dozen times and haven't pulled the trigger on picking it up - I'll have to do so in the near future!
Delete