Let’s Not Scroll Our Summer Away

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Our schedules are likely opening up a bit as graduations commence and summer vacations are underway. Even for those whose lives aren’t directed by the academic calendar, June, July, and August often offer breaks from some commitments.

Living in a time when productivity is praised and idle time harnessed to get more done, it would be easy to use the free time that comes with summer to mindlessly scroll and feed our attachment to the devices that educate, inform, entertain, and connect us. The problem is they rarely connect us more intimately to ourselves.

Our near-constant attachment to technology has had an immense impact on the way in which we use time. Even relatively mindless scrolling can garner a sense of productivity (enabling us to complete tasks) and feed the sense that we aren’t wasting time (we aren’t being lazy if we’re doing “something.” At the same time, this passive passing of our thumbs across our screens prevents us from developing the ability to tolerate or create moments of quiet, rest, and openness. This holds us back from the kinds of increased creativity, joy, and contentment that come with the willingness and ability to embrace boredom or what the Dutch call “Niksen” (translated roughly as “to do nothing deliciously.”

Our brains wire together where they fire together, which means that a brain that has exposure to constant stimulation becomes neurologically adapted to fast-paced, sensorily stimulating environments. The person who fills every moment with productivity and task switching, online or off, becomes capable of living with distraction. While this can come without significant cost, all too often, multi-tasking makes us feel overwhelmed and emotionally dysregulated. At the end of the day, saying that a person who multi-tasks a lot becomes a good multi-tasker is akin to saying, “I smoke a lot, so I’m a very proficient smoker.”

Carrying our devices with us everywhere, accessing them regardless of context, and relying on them to help us avoid boredom, interaction with others, and the ever-present awkward moment robs us of opportunities to try a different way of life. As we wire our brains to become excellent at task switching, we rob them of the opportunity to build skills that might enable us to engage with our inner selves more deeply, ushering in greater creativity, emotional regulation, and a feeling of steadiness or grounding.

Why not harness some of the free time of summer to bulk up on our ability to engage in quiet and boredom and be fully present in any given moment? Breaking the constant scrolling habit may be challenging. Doing so, however, will offer us the opportunity to put some new norms in place for our daily living. Norms that might make way for greater contentment and emotional stability.*

Here are a few places to start setting norms that might pave the way to a more embodied, creative, and engaged summer.

1. Practice pausing between your impulse to reach for your phone and touching it. Most of us grab our devices when we experience moments of idleness (think red lights, the time right after arriving home, when you first wake up or are attempting to sleep). A worthwhile goal would be to insert a 30-60 second pause every time you find yourself reaching for your phone simply because you are bored.

In that short pause, ask yourself what you feel and if there is one non-digital action you could take to address that. If uncomfortable, might you stretch or take a few deep breaths? If you’re lonely, might you reach out to a friend? If you’re bored, perhaps you could make up a limerick in your mind or do a five senses scan, identifying one thing you can see, another you can hear, and so on, going through all five senses).

If you need a tangible reminder, place a sticker on your phone that reminds you to take a pause each time you grab for it in times you don’t actually need it. Imagine it to be a hot potato requiring you to pull your hand away at mindless touches. It takes real effort to develop the ability to be fully present in each moment. This pause helps you develop this proclivity.

2. Prepare your environment for analog/embodied fun. Do this now. It’s not enough anymore to ask ourselves just to walk away from our devices. Instead, we must ensure we have easy access to tools to help us leave them behind without feeling anxious or overly aware of their absence. Sometimes we grab our phones simply because they are always the thing with us.

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During the summer months, place a small (phone-sized) journal or notebook with a tiny pen where you normally carry your phone; when waiting for a friend, doodle or write. Place handheld games like Rush Hour or small puzzles on coffee tables and your desk. Place a bowl of Kinetic Sand or a tin of putty there as well. Attach a small fidget toy of any sort to your key ring or cut up a carpet sample and punch a hole in a small square, attaching that to your key ring. Keep colored pencils in a cup with some plain paper on the counter so you can draw, write, or fold paper airplanes. Make your environments inviting to your whole body in ways your phone is not.

3. Invite someone to your experiment. Inviting a friend or family member to try this with you and setting a weekly check-in time can be helpful and fun. Share tips and tools as you go.

4. Schedule at least one “big” embodied treat. Summertime brings community events that don’t happen at other times of the year. Look for concerts or live theater in local parks or scan local hot spots for “free” offerings in the summer. Save for an arts event or go to a museum or gallery. All your small pauses for practice will add up to an enhanced ability to enjoy embodied experiences. Make sure that at least one is scheduled, and determine that a large amount of that experience will happen with your phone turned off.

5. Reward yourself for practice (like a summer reading program). Aside from your one “big” reward, find small ways of taking pride in your experiment. Pay attention to any decreases in your anxiety from the start of your experiment. Notice the sense of calm that can come as you settle into moments without being distracted or overstimulated. When you are able to pause and do so with regularity, consider rewarding yourself with a new set of watercolor paints, a lovely plant, or some other thing you can enjoy when your hands are free of your device.

* Where habits are largely unconscious, norms are deliberately chosen activities that can guide us to greater health. A habit might be quickly running a toothbrush over your teeth before bed. A norm would be to set a timer to make sure you brush for a set time, following this with thorough flossing.