Sat in a booth of an original, slightly nostalgic hometown diner with a group of friends over winter break, I heard an “Ahem,” from the booth behind us, followed by a “How old are you girls?”
This was never a good sign, and seemed to be heading in a direction that would be leading us to vacate the restaurant quite soon.
A pause and a moment of silence.
“We’re… college age,” one of us, though I can’t remember who, replied. He clarified that he didn’t mean to be creepy — whew, thanks for the warning — and had sons around our age.
He had been watching us while his wife was in the bathroom — getting slightly creepy again — and was perplexed by our interactions. He noticed all of our phones were stashed away in pockets or purses, away from the table.
We were locked in the moment, truly enjoying each other’s company. He remarked that he barely saw faces of kids our age without the halo of a mobile screen glow, and was impressed with our ability to fully entertain ourselves.
Though the interaction itself gave us a bit of a fright, I continued to consider what he had pointed out. We didn’t make a “no phones at the table” rule or have a collection basket. We simply enjoyed each other’s company and were fully engaged in the stories we shared.
Nameless man from the diner was right. When I began to look around in classes, out on the streets and even to my own friends at school on occasion, it’s rare that we can go through a full interaction without a quick phone break or even an Apple Watch buzz.
In a study conducted by Common Sense Media and UMichigan Health, teens reportedly picked up their phones between 2 and 498 times a day, averaging 51 times. Most participants in the study received more than 237 notifications a day.
We have entered a new age and we need to face its reality — we cannot and will not live without our phones. They are the ultimate source of our entertainment, whether through texts, social media or more traditional entertainment like streaming platforms.
With that, there is a loss of self-entertainment and creativity that kids were once forced to bear. With limited TV channels and rarely a children’s show playing throughout the day, kids of the previous age were tasked with their own enjoyment.
Boredom stems from dissonance between a desired level of engagement in activity and the actual level of engagement that the activity is offering. The issue is not a lack of activities and media to keep us entertained, but the expectation level of entertainment that has been heightened by access to the internet.
In a world where there are endless possibilities to be entertained, the threshold for what we find engaging has skyrocketed. Our brains are constantly bombarded with stimuli from our devices, making us less and less responsive to engaging content.
Whereas a new YouTube video or post on Instagram used to be an exciting development, the oversaturated media market has desensitized us to new content. The internet, like the universe, is a vast and constantly growing expanse with no shortage of new cracks and crevices to explore if one so chooses.
It’s not just a simple question of returning to the dark ages of media-less fun — now that we have been exposed to constant access to content, our subconscious expectations for engagement have exceeded what was previously pleasurable.
While I would love to say that kids should return to playing outside with their neighborhood friends for some old-fashioned entertainment, their early access to media content has already ruined the capacity to make their own fun.
Expected engagement is handed to us on a silver platter every time we open our mobile devices. We’re too lazy to go out and find our own fun, and who could blame us?
The new generations of children will never know the fun and freedom the previous ones enjoyed in a simpler time with simpler needs for an engaging adolescent life.
