At the risk of sounding like a boomer, I’d like to posit one of their favorite phrases for reconsideration: “Put down that damn phone.”
They have a point, and I’ve found that I’m starting to share their sentiment.
The other day I left for class and forgot my phone charging at home. I was already running late, so I decided to just rawdog the day and was shocked at how often I reached for it — from the short 20-second wait at the University Ave. stoplight to the shorter ride in the elevator, I found myself patting my empty back pocket more times than I could count, and I’d wager that most of you reading this have experienced the same.
It’s time to break this cycle, Ags. There’s a whole world out there, but we’re so caught up in our screens we never see it.
You’re reading this on your phone right now, aren’t you? If not, I bet it’s sitting right next to your computer.
When was the last time you walked to class without headphones or earbuds? The last time you woke up and didn’t immediately check your phone? The last time you ate without YouTube?
That’s what I thought.
We live in a world that makes it easy to be constantly engaged — whether it’s snapping with friends, doomscrolling on Twitter or filling every spare moment with music and podcasts, you’re only a tap away from an endless supply of information and entertainment at all times.
Is it so wrong that we’ve succumbed to the temptations of technology? I don’t think so. In an ever-expanding world, it’s all we can do to keep up. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to stay grounded.
Boredom is in short supply these days, but doing nothing is a balm for your brain. It’s good for creativity, task engagement and productivity.
It sounds counterintuitive, but boredom is the coffee beans to the myriad Yankee Candle smells of your life. If you’re running from class to class, pumping out assignments and filling your spare moments with eating, TikTok and spending time with friends, your body doesn’t have a chance to calibrate.
One of my summer reads this year was “The Stranger” by Albert Camus, written back in the dark ages before smartphones were even a blip on the map. When Meursault, the protagonist, is incarcerated in the monochrome nothingness of the prison, he begins retracing his life in as much detail as he can recall.
“And the more I thought about it, the more I dug out my memory things I had overlooked or forgotten. I realized then that a man who had lived only one day could easily live for a hundred years in prison. He would have enough memories to keep him from being bored.”
Now, perhaps Meursault isn’t the best role model given his homicidal tendencies and clinical indifference to, well, everything, but he’s got boredom figured out all right.
Sometimes laying in bed staring at the blades of your ceiling fan is just the palate cleanser you need, and from that nothingness comes memories and fantasies and daydreams.
Can you remember the last time you really teased out a daydream? Laid in bed and let it completely overtake you, living out that life in your head? Imagination is good for you, and just like your other muscles, it should be exercised once in a while.
There’s another equally important side to the boredom coin: mindfulness, or paying attention and living in the moment. Mindfulness is when, instead of pulling up Instagram while waiting for the bus, you watch the trail of ants marching their little lives away in the Memorial Student Center grass.
Mindfulness is looking. Look, look around at the world, at how beautiful everything is. Let that childlike wonder come back to you as you appreciate … everything. You’re only at A&M for four, maybe five years. You’re only here on earth for 80 or 90. Do you really want to spend it mindlessly scrolling through social media?
It’s time to put down the screens and try thinking for once.
Now go. Go daydream, go for a walk, go wallow in bed and be bored.
Put down that damn phone and go do nothing for a while. Who knows? You might even like it.
Charis Adkins is an English senior and opinion editor for The Battalion.
