It's so funny today,the time we spend on our screens including children as a result of technological advancement in the world today. I'm not exempted on this in fact, it's affecting me greatly. I was at the hospital few weeks back when a woman walked in carrying a little baby, together with an older woman who seemed like her mother and a child of about three years old. What caught my attention was the boy of about three years old who was holding a tab. The annoying part of it was that the boy was glued to the screen watching animated movie on it. It wasn't as if they were sited in a place, they were walking and both the mother and the grandma didn't see anything wrong with what the child was doing. What if he falls and injured himself. I felt bad about their action because it was senseless.
I spend a lot of time on my phone as well because I have a lot of things to do with it like what I'm doing now, either making a post or trying to read and make comments on other posts. It takes a lot of time sometimes and some other times, I just spend few hours and do something else which is on this same screen as well.
I have some lessons I paid for, that are virtual. It's either on zoom, google meet or Google classroom. The least time I spend in class is two hours. I have to attend classes because it's important. If it's not important, I won't pay for it. So, I attend classes and make sure to submit my assignment. Everything is done on my phone.
Sometimes, I also have to attend meetings both of my fellowship, work, the organizations I volunteer for, and the likes. I must be present for meetings which also takes a lot of time and everything is done online, with my phone.
All these activities makes it difficult for me to even watch the television. I usually try to put my phone aside when my family needs my attention. I if it's not important, I don't do it. I only visit WhatsApp when I want to send a message to someone, and I take the opportunity to reply messages. I also check for important messages before I retire to bed.
You only realize that you have had enough when you are intentional about reducing your screen time. People that are addicted don't realize this. When they are tired of chatting, they switch to playing games, and when they get tired of that too, they mey decide to watch a movie still on that same screen.
It may be very difficult for some group of people to reduce their screen time except they are very intentional about it. People that are not married, introverts and people that are already addicted to phone. A married person may have no choice but to put away the phone when the spouse or child needs their attention but someone who is not married yet may have no one to share his attention with his phone.
Most introverts have nothing else to do other than to be glued to their phones, because they don't want to be around people physically their only companions are their phones. The ones that are addicted, spend all day on phone doing both important and not important things.
We all know that this act is wrong but we lack the discipline to do the right thing.
For anyone who wants to regulate their screen time, the only tip I have is for them to have a To do list of things which involves offline. Plan your day and don't just pick your phone when you're bored. Do physical fun things just to regulate the time spent on your phone. So when you're with the phone, you're doing very important things.
This is my response to Hive learners community weekly featured contents on the topic: What's Your Screen Time?
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