I want you to think of something you enjoy. Something you used to do a lot more when you were younger, but that nowadays tends to get crowded out by the increasing demands on your time, by the burnout and fatigue. It might be drawing, playing chess, taking long walks, people watching. 

For me, it was reading. For most of my life, I’ve been a voracious reader. But as I got older, I began to notice a strange pattern taking shape. Almost every conversation I had with a fellow reader became a mutual lament about how hard it was to focus enough to finish an entire book, how we were reading less than we used to because we just couldn’t find the time or concentration. Then, about three months ago, I decided to stop complaining and do something about it. 

Tired of the late night scrolling, constant interruptions, and persistent brain fog,  about 3 months ago, at the start of my junior year of high school, I swapped my iphone for a simple flip phone. It takes me forever to text, but I can call just fine, and it actually improved my conversations with friends to speak to them on the phone more often instead of texting. My flip phone has a GPS to navigate, a clock to tell time, a contacts app to store phone numbers, and that’s… basically it. 

Without tiktok, reddit, discord and instagram, I had so much more time to read, to talk to my family and friends, to just think. I started bringing library books with me to read on the bus, in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, and during other odd chunks of time when I would usually just pull out my phone. I read instead of looking at my phone for an hour before bed. My time spent on homework every day was cut in half because I wasn’t stopping every few minutes to check a notification. The result was exactly what it sounds like: I was back to reading as much as I had as a kid. I was rediscovering the beauty of books, how they can expand the world like nothing else. Life felt infinitely richer than it had before. 

Obviously getting rid of my phone didn’t fix all of my problems- I still have anxiety, I still get depressed at times, and overwhelmed with work. But it gave me a little room to breathe, to escape the commodification of everything. Of course it was hard at first, but not nearly as hard as I thought it would be. After a short period of withdrawal I can honestly say I did not miss my phone at all. 

If you have a smartphone, I want you to pull it out right now and check your average screen time. Yes, that terrifying number we all try so desperately to ignore, to avoid seeing. Now multiply that number by 7, for a week. 30 for a month, if you want to. Imagine what that number looks like for an entire lifetime. Imagine all the other things you could be doing with that time, things that are important or meaningful or even just relaxing. Scary, right? That number on your screen is time being subtracted from your life.

The worst thing you can steal from someone is time. After all, that’s why murder is the most heinous crime. Time is exactly what is being stolen from you by massive tech companies who steal your attention to feed their advertising revenue. Some significant portion of your time on earth will be spent as the unpaid cash cow of a social media company. But the great news is, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Those hours could be spent doing whatever it is that you really enjoy, consciously living your life. Instead of feeling empty and vaguely angry after a 20 minute scrolling session, you can feel the satisfaction that comes from 20 minutes spent walking down a new route, playing with a toddler, watching a sparrow build a nest, having a conversation,  or even just seeing the rain fall. Whatever it is you thought of, that thing you wish you still had time for: you can have it again. All you have to do is choose to. 

Yes, giving up your phone will be inconvenient. It will require creative solutions to problems. People will make fun of you for it. It will be difficult, and maybe painful. But so is getting rid of any parasite- yanking out tapeworms is no picnic. And the best thing of all? The more people choose to turn away from the technology that has made our lives worse, the easier it will get. If we all make a choice, then we have changed society. Imagine what your friend group dynamics would be like if everyone was looking at each other instead of their phones while you talked. Imagine never again seeing a parent ignoring their sobbing child as they stare at a screen. Imagine never again feeling the flare of humiliation that comes with seeing an instagram post of a party you weren’t invited to. Imagine never again shoving away the shame and fear that comes from realizing you’ve spent an entire afternoon watching tiktoks, and you can’t even remember a single one. 

Life is so, so short. Why give up more of it than we already have to for school and work? Think carefully, because you only get one life. Is any instagram post or reddit meme really worth the weight of addiction, the compulsion to return to your phone again and again? The hours you lose each day? The deepening cynicism and mistrust that comes from consuming content designed to make you angry and nothing else? Most of all, consider the void that phones create. The emptiness and vague agitation you feel after a scrolling session. The loneliness and dead quiet of a friend group or family event where each person is on their own device. The world doesn’t have to be this depressing. It really doesn’t. We have a choice.

This year, I am asking you to join me in creating a movement to walk away from our individual cages and back into the world. If I as a 16 year old can do it, so can you. All we have to do to have our freedom is put down the burden that makes it so hard to move forward in an already crushing world. Starting today, with you, with your friends, with your family, let’s make 2022 a little happier, a little freer, a little more human. This is the year we resist.