On stopping the madness
I'm one rabbit hole away from missing the entire day
We’re all doing it. Scrolling on our phones as digital media use is accelerating faster than ever. It’s Saturday morning. Raining again. We’ve been up for several hours but I’m still eating toast and watching reel after reel on the computer in bed with my coffee. Swirls is taking her cue from me and is curled up on my spouse Janyce’s pillow instead of dogging us to take her on a walk. I can hear Janyce muttering to herself at the kitchen table, paying bills, answering her email. Earlier, I heard the sounds of the dishwasher getting emptied, the knives and forks clattering together in the drawer and the gurgling of the coffee maker. Now I’m wondering how it could be so late already as I glance over at the top right corner of my screen to see the time.
I hear the muffled cheers from the football field a quarter mile away, and in the background is the metronome-like slosh of our washing machine, (Janyce must be doing laundry) and I am further distracted by a clicking sound coming from my left shoulder every time I move my arm.
My phone blinks.
A friend of mine sent me a hilarious meme in a DM the other day and I responded by sending one back. Another friend emailed me an online article about a tiny island in the Inner Hebrides off the coast of Scotland last week, much to my delight—and with links. That was an hour right there. This morning, my ex-husband Jim forwarded me a TikTok of a wholesome comedian whose entire act is the expert delivery of the line, “Let me meet your fat fruit friends, I’d love to meet them.” It’s been on repeat this morning. Every time I pick up the phone from where it is tossed on the bed beside me, I hear it again and chuckle. I have at least 10 tabs open at the top of my browser.
My phone blinks, again.
One of my girlfriends texts, “Morning! Reason I’m chiming in so late? I was reel watching too! What an interesting commentary of how we, even the elders, scroll away.”
Aren’t I too old for all this? Except I’m not. We’re all doing it. Scrolling on our phones as digital media use is accelerating faster than ever. I even catch Janyce looking at her own phone more often. She has always prided herself on being an outward luddite (even though she is savvier about technology than she ever lets on) who would sometimes take days to answer her sister’s text messages. Poor Agni would resort to tracking me down on Facebook messenger and beg me to help her get Janyce’s attention.
But we’re all living increasingly digital now. Even Janyce. It used to be an individualist stance you could take in life —refuse to get a smartphone, refuse to get caught up in social media, or the latest emerging digital trend. At least for me, I worry most lately about the intersection of aging and relevance. I reluctantly embrace the digital world.
I read a New York Times article about teens opting for flip phones and getting back to reading books, and NPR did a piece on how still others are using apps to reduce their scrolling habits to keep them from feeling badly about themselves. Social media doesn’t have that same emotional effect on an older generation, I think. At least for me, I don’t care about amassing likes and followers, I already know who my friends are, I’m not worried about missing out. In fact, I’m more interested in dropping out. How can I get out of so many midlife obligations? How can I slow everything down? I probably should start by putting the phone away.
Last weekend Janyce took a break from house cleaning and I put the computer aside, and we both sat together on the leather couch in our living room. Miles Davis’s muted trumpet was setting the tone for the late afternoon. We held our chilled glasses of whisky in one hand, sweetened with a touch of honey syrup, one large square ice cube clinking against the sides of the glass. Swirls was enjoying a bully stick on the floor, her sharp chewing keeping time with the hiss of the percussive cymbals emanating from the stereo.
“Wait— do you hear that?” said Janyce. “It’s from Transparent isn’t it?”
“No, it’s Miles Davis. Hear the trumpet?” I said. “Check the title on Spotify.”
“It is Miles,” she said. “Song is called, ‘It never entered my mind.’ They totally stole that piano intro from this.”
The music was louder than we usually play it, the room was dark, the windows fogged. The rain outside drizzled in steady tempo with the trumpet trills. It was one of those truly perfect moments when time seemed to stop.
“Incoming!” says Janyce, calling loudly from the kitchen. All this time, I have been frittering away the morning with one interruption and distraction after another. I hadn’t even noticed that she fed the dog and took her out. Swirls comes barreling back into the room and propels her 50-pound body onto the bed only mere seconds before I grab my closed laptop and slide it onto the bedside table. She smells like wet leaves and late summer sunshine. It’s already halfway through September. The football game is still going strong with another wave of cheering from the crowd.
I reach out to pat my dog on her head and she licks my hand.
“What do you say I put the plastic things away and we go out on another walk in the woods, huh Swirly? What do you say?”