How many hours per day do you spend looking at a screen?
As a Gen Z member who got her first smartphone at 12 years old, I can hardly remember life without it. I do remember being bored a lot. I also remember feeling more curious, more grounded, less anxious, and less scattered. Now, at 24, I can hardly detach from my phone long enough to brush my teeth in peace.
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about the time I spend looking at my phone. From the compulsive notification checks to the mindless scrolling on socials, I hardly have any time left away from a screen to think my own thoughts without any external stimuli. I’ve been trying hard to cut back my screen time, and it’s really, really difficult. I know that a lot of people, Gen Z or otherwise, feel similarly.
I also know from personal experience that the more time I spend on social media, the more anxious and unhappy I am. Plus, now that Instagram and Tiktok have settled on my personalized algorithm of endless video content that makes me laugh or smile or feel some other emotion for a few seconds, my brain wants more and more and the mindless scrolling is next to impossible to control. Have I seen the new Erewhon smoothie? Is Jennifer Aniston’s dermal filler leaking and causing her under eye bags? Did I hear about this billionaire’s wife who got bullied for her instagram handle? Do I know how to travel Thailand on a budget? Have I watched this guy make an entire sandwich made of nothing but pickles?
Arguably, we all spend a little too much time on our phones. What else could we be doing with those hours? For myself and the 3 other co-founders of Play Carrom, sometimes the answer is playing carrom.
Aside from being very(!) fun in and of itself, carrom has helped me disconnect from my screen and connect with my friends in real life instead. The laughs we all share playing carrom are so much more real and longer lasting in my memory than any 30-second Instagram video could ever bring.
I’m not proposing the solution to screen burn out and the mind-numbingness of social media is to just buy our thing! and tell your friends! (I promise!) Rather, this is just one thing of many things that has worked for me in my own personal mission to look at my screens less and engage in the real world more. I really hope it works for you too.
Madison, co-founder of play carrom