How the Digital Pacifier Numbed Our Brains - Part 1
Welcome to the year 2046. AI has revolted and has taken over the world by hacking into our Neuralinks, making us turn against each other to exterminate the human race.
It’s scary to think of such a terrifying scenario, although the recent fearmongering in the news regarding the dangers of general artificial intelligence and the imagery of an uncertain dystopian future is real, all it has done is distract us from an important society-altering issue that we are currently facing: the pernicious effects of the digital pacifier, our phones!
Our phones have become digital pacifiers that we use whenever we feel lonely, uncomfortable, bored, sad, uncertain, or afraid. They are the security blanket we surround ourselves with, to calm ourselves of the negative emotions that we experience, failing to realize that it is the blanket itself that induces those feelings in us.
When your phone is a time filler.
There are certain times throughout our days that are considered “dead time”, that is time in which nothing of significance happens and for most people, can be considered as wasted time. That is time spent queueing, waiting for the oven to warm up, waiting for the bus, riding the bus, or waiting for your friends to arrive late for the 456th time in a row because bad habits are hard to break I guess.
In these “dead time” moments humans used to get bored, to daydream, and some of them maybe even got to think for the first time. That is until we started using our phones as pacifiers wherever these feelings of boredom arose.
Now when you wait in line for your overpriced frappuccino, the first instinct you have is to take your phone out of your pocket and scroll social media.
When you are watching the trailers in the cinema before the main movie starts, stop annoying everyone with your maximum brightness display because you can’t wait to see the latest posts from your favorite wannabe influencers.
While you clean the dishes you think it’s a good opportunity to listen to your new “life-changing” audiobook on 2x speed.
When riding the train to and from work, you interrupt the sadness of the monotonous commute by playing Candy Crush (or whatever the latest viral game is).
When you are on your lunch break at your new job, you gravitate towards your phone to save yourself from the awkwardness of sitting by yourself and avoid looking your new co-workers in the eye when they notice you have not made friends there yet.
“Killing time” is okay. But let me tell you this, YOU ARE BEING ROBED!
We have robbed ourselves of what it is to be human and be alive in the mundane moments of existence. We have become so obsessed with cramming in a day as many things as possible and trying to evade the anxiety of anticipation of waiting for the next thing in our day that will give us enough of a dopamine hit to stimulate our dopamine-depended brains.
When was the last time you ate food without watching something on your phone, even if that was educational, the news, or just video chatting with a friend?
We have lost touch with being by ourselves. Alone. In silence.
Dare to look “weird” by chatting to strangers in the doctor’s waiting room.
Dare to bear the silence of your solitude.
Dare not to fill the gaps of dead time with mindless entertainment.
Dare to be bored for god's sake!
Recovering from the time filler addiction
If you are self-aware enough to catch yourself using your digital pacifier uncontrollably, don’t worry, it’s not too late, but you will need to start taking action soon.
I challenge you, tomorrow, on your day off, unless someone depends on you having your phone on you, leave your digital pacifier behind.
Go for a walk without it. Go exercise without it. Tell your friends that you will meet them somewhere at a certain time and attend without taking your phone with you. Let your mind wander on the way to a big event. Build some anticipation for the first date that you are going and stop being distracted by random bullshit on your phone. I challenge you to go the whole day without looking at a single device. Just you and that scary thing you are afraid to confront, your thoughts.
Go read a book at a park or in a cafe by yourself.
“Oh but what if someone calls me?” I hear you say.
No one will call you and if they do, they just don’t get to tell you the latest work gossip. Big deal. Who are you even expecting a phone call from? Sarah from HR? Well just explain how you missed a phone call because you were busy living life.
I dare you to go the whole day without touching your phone and you will see how much happier you will become.
Resist the need to distract yourself with online drama.
Regain control over your attention and purposefully direct it toward things that bring you closer to your goals, other people, and yourself.
Don't text your friends that you love them, go and actually meet them and create some awesome memories together.
You have conditioned yourself to believe that it is okay to be constantly interrupted by notifications or you just allow your mind's capacity for attention to be divided between so many things that you do not truly focus on the things that truly matter anymore.
Disconnect from the internet. Shut down your phone.
Give yourself permission to do nothing and watch how you gradually obtain the benefits of being bored. Once you regain control of your attention, you will free so much mental real estate that it will automatically give you the capacity to become more productive when you focus on your task at hand.
By constantly consuming through our phones, we have outsourced our thinking to others and we are stuck with following their suggestions on how to live our lives, desperately trying new ways and methods to fix our lifestyles whilst failing to do the most fundamental act, think for ourselves.
Our minds are fountains of ideas that derive divine inspiration from the environment around us and only when we stop and pay attention to it, only then, we are able to garner that which animates our souls. That which poems, songs, and books are written from.
Stop trying so hard to make something of your dead time by looking at your phone, because not only do you miss the beauty that surrounds you, but you will soon lose the ability to notice and appreciate the fantastical complexity of the mystery of life.
