In nearly every spare moment, my hands instinctively reach for my phone, patting and tapping pockets and surfaces until it’s found. Without thought or consciousness, my thumb taps whichever social media icon is closest to my home screen. I’ll close that tab out of boredom. Maybe it’s once my brain comes to, momentarily aware of the rabbit hole I’d senselessly meandered down. Instantly, the tab I closed is replaced by a different social media, swapping one scrolling platform for another. They make it so easy, too, to click on a reel and get lost. To mindlessly distract from what is right in front of me.
Have you ever watched someone watch TV? Or scroll their phone? Or engage with video after video on a screen? Play a video game. Something creepy (in my opinion) happens. Their eyes glaze over and they go somewhere else. It reminds me of Avatar–entering the big blue body and laying the human one to rest for a while. It takes several moments to get their attention and bring them back to the present time and space. It can be frustrating and disorienting.
And I notice for myself, that when I am in that alternate, virtual reality, I have laid my human body to rest for the time. I can ignore hunger, thirst, and bathroom urges. I’ll eventually set my phone down to realize my legs have gone numb, my shoulders have grown achy (They call it tech neck, I guess. They have a name for it.) I feel disoriented, dizzy, and slow. If someone tries to get my attention, I become disgruntled, grouchy, frustrated. Cue the French guy from Shrek “Please, Monster! Can’t you see I’m a little busy here?” I might hurt my feelings by saying this, but I have been told more than once that my excessive social media interactions have had a negative and unfortunate impact on my relationships.
In our modern society, it seems social media is our go-to means for advertising, side hustling, entertaining, educating, informing, interacting, existing. Distracting.
I would classify my personal experience with social media as an addiction. If it isn’t medically diagnosable, I’d say it’s close. (I’d recommend the book Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Anna Lembke, M.D.)
As I was engaging in my most popular pastime, scrolling instagram, I found a post by Brittany Bento. She says, “Often these addictions are there because they’re distracting yourself from something deeper rooted… Only through healing did I realize I did this to numb myself to disconnect from my body. Being in my body was uncomfortable. When I healed my wounds, these addictions subsided.”
Maybe this resonates with you, and maybe it doesn’t. For me, personally, there has been so much, historically speaking, that I didn’t love about my reality. So much that I’ve wanted to distract myself from. I have a lot of buried wounds–the kind that hurt so bad that ignoring it feels safer and better and easier than the pain and vulnerability of exposing it to air and water and salve. You and I both know that cleaning it up and nursing it with fresh gauze and honey will serve me much better than letting it rot. But that doesn’t make it any less terrifying. We are hard-wired to avoid pain and suffering and hurt.
In all this doting on myself, treating myself well, and eating three meals a day, I’ve developed a little rapport with myself. I’m starting to trust myself. I’m learning that I am reliable and safe, and that I’m here and listening. It feels safer now than ever to gently tend to my pain and discomfort. To process and scream and cry and flail. To bathe myself sweetly, wrap myself in a blanket, brew myself tea.
And more than anything to create a life I don’t want to distract myself from.
To foster experiences that are meaningful and engaging and exciting and captivating. That are purposeful and driven. Organic and carefree. To exist in the moment in front of me, fully content with every need met.
Again, I say to you. I am fed. I am watered. I am warm and I am dry. What more could I ask for. What more could I need. This is a life worth living–a life I don’t want to distract myself from.