Greetings, writers—
Oh, I had big plans for the teachers’ strike.1 I was going to drive my family to L.A. I was going to teach my kids how to cook.2 We were going to watch documentaries together and learn about space or the Civil War or fungi.3 And who knew—maybe we’d even become the kind of people who like to play board games.4 (?)
What actually happened is that Jon and I kept working, just like always, and our children oozed around the house, reading5 and doing schoolwork6 and hanging out with friends, but also spending what seemed like hours a day on their phones.
They don’t have IG or TikTok and they barely know what Facebook is, so I couldn’t understand what they were doing on there all the time. Whenever I asked, the answer was always “texting” or “Webtoons.” The Duolingo hours, though, were obvious.
I remember a friend of Jon’s saying, with a kind of happy incredulity, “You know, TV is a really good babysitter!” His kid was probably four or five then. And we were like, Yeah, no shit, dude, but you’re not supposed to use it like that.
But for three whole weeks I let the phones babysit my kids, who are otherwise too old for babysitters, when I should’ve been teaching them how to make a frittata at the very least.
“What’s happening with our cell phones is that we put a thing in our pocket that’s with us all the time that always offers the easy thing to do, rather than the important thing.”
That’s Sune Lehmann, a Danish professor in applied math and computer science, quoted in Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—And How to Think Deeply Again.
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