introduction

It is pretty obvious that I love tech. I love creating, I love tinkering with things, I love making things, etc. It’s just been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I didn’t really think much of it until last where, when I realized how much tech has evolved within my short life, and how much of an impact it has made on me. It also made me realize how much time it consumed and how obsessed I was with it. It wasn’t just tech. It spread to social media and latched onto my brain like some sort of parasite. The issue isn’t necessarily with social media, rather with the relationship I had with it. It started with me going on YouTube a lot, refreshing my home page and waiting for someone’s new video to drop, or going down some sort of rabbit hole. This in turn created horrible habits including chronic cell phone use and severe sleep deprivation.

“So what’s the problem? I live like this and it’s fine for the most part”, is what some may be asking themselves. This lifestyle I was leading was causing me a lot of stress. I was really anxious all the time, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what people were saying, what they were saying about me, and what others were saying about each other. I thought it was good being so connected, but over time I realized that there was no point to living a life as such. I wasn’t doing anything productive, and drama moves so fast in the landscape of the internet that none of it matters come time 1-2 weeks later.

The biggest problem was I was content with who I was, because it was comfortable. It was what I grew up with. I was content with the chronically online person I was becoming, and I hate that. I hate that it took me so long to open my eyes and realize how damaging this was to my life.

last edited: 2023-05-27

quality of sleep

This will come as no surprise to anyone, but people who have horrible OCD and ADHD don’t get the best sleep if they’re unmedicated and don’t know what’s going on inside their head. I used to get a solid 4-5 hours of sleep on the regular in elementary school, and half the time even less in high school. Would it surprise you to hear that I had constant brain fog, and was unable to focus on anything? Would it surprise you to hear that I was miserable, lethargic, and weak all the time?

If none of this surprises you, then why are you doing it to yourself? You aren’t an exception to the rule, and you aren’t special. Realizing you have a problem is the first step towards recovery, because most people in my generation are addicts to their smartphones whether they’d like to admit it or not. They’re held down by the possibility of a notification coming in, or the possibility of good news coming in, or the possibility of a meme making their day on reddit, and so on. It isn’t right, and it’s what made me lose the most amount of sleep growing up.

stepping back from them

I am not that important of a person that needs to be contacted every 5 seconds. I am just a guy. I think this sentiment should be echoed more widely across the internet as a whole. There’s honestly no reason to spend as much time as I spent on snapchat when I was 17, ever. Unless you’re getting active updates about a hostage situation that you’re involved, why the fuck are you spending 10 hours a day on Discord or Twitter. A lot of people around my age, or in my generation literally lose sleep over notifications they’re anticipating on Instagram, Discord, WhatsApp, etc. My question is, what’s the point? Something that should be considered when you’re talking to someone over the internet is that they have a life too. They live outside of the internet. If they’re not always on their phone, that’s fine. If you are offended by people taking too long to respond, if it’s within reason, of course you can be upset! But if you’re upset over someone not responding to a meme you sent 20-30 minutes ago, you’re a psychopath!

The biggest question I asked myself and quickly realized the answer to was the following: “Am I happy living like this?”. The answer was an unsurprising no. Of course I wasn’t. I was spending an obscene amount of time wasting time I wanted to spend doing other things. I was constantly feeling anxious but was telling myself “just one more check of the good ol’ notifications” which would turn into another 1-2 hour doomscrolling session. I wasted so much of my time refreshing Twitter and Snapchat it’s upsetting. I am 21 now, but something important to take away from this is: your parents were right. The phone was the problem.

the twitter era

This is an era that most of my close friends remember. I used to be on Twitter constantly. I do mean, constantly. My screen time would be super high every single day, I would have to sometimes charge my phone from 0-100 twice a day, my wrists would crack due to the amount of time I would spend just holding my phone scrolling, trying to find something to consume. It was a destructive part of my life, and I don’t wish for it again.

I remember being in Grade 7, sitting down with my friend Eric at lunch. At the time I was really into MCSG (Minecraft Survival Games. If you remember, you’re a real one), and a lot of the YouTubers I used to watch were getting into Twitter. I knew what Twitter was already. I had known about it probably since its inception, since my Dad was an early adopter. I decided on that day to “become addicted to Twitter”. Why did I decide this? I literally have 0 fucking idea, and I even remember saying that I was going to become a “Twitter Addict”.

From there, I would become a chronic user of the app for about 5-6 years before ultimately abandoning it. Before I get anyone messaging me saying “but lucas! you still have a twitter account that you have tweeted and liked stuff from recently!”. I use Twitter maybe monthly (or less than) when there’s a major melee tournament going on. Smash mainly lives on Twitter, and I get linked tweets that I sometimes interact with if I am logged in. It isn’t a service I am actively trying to use, nor avoid. It’s just nothing to me now, and I am glad.