"Phones? No. We had each other."
This is such a great piece, I definitely recommend a read.
This is the most antisocial generation. I'm identifying so many detrimental effects of having a phone based childhood in myself. I'm still so addicted to my phone. I crave real social interaction, but it seems unobtainable. I've gone through trying to quit social media before. In high school I used to be able to lose my phone in my room all day or leave it at home. I cannot do that anymore. I sometimes spend every waking hour staring at a screen. Even the books I try to read are on a screen because my local library doesn't carry the ones I actually want to read! It seems like their collection has shrunk because people read less physical books now. They get their information and entertainment online, and they prefer the easy access of ebooks. I miss spending hours poring over a book and finishing 200 pages in one day. I haven't done that in years.
More recently, my attempts at quitting are depressing. Because it's got my family too. My dad spends most of his time watching youtube. My mom spends most of her time playing useless games for tiny prizes and scrolling through facebook. I'll set my phone down wanting to interact only to be met with people around me lost in their own screens. If I try to say something, I'm ignored or given some distracted answer. Even when we have conversations in the car, my mom is constantly distracted now. She's a worse driver too. She can't focus. I can't really either. She also makes less sense now, because her train of thought is all over the place.
It didn't used to be like this before the covid years, before she lost her job and I was away at college. Nothing to occupy her time but her phone. My dad has other hobbies. He fixes cars and goes mountain biking. I'm trying desperately to form hobbies and stick to them but I'm not doing so well. And my mom? She seems so lost.
I'm scared that we're losing something we can never get back.
