When I opened Tikkok to see a pink motorola flip phone, I wanted one immediately – maybe without the glitter. I introduced myself to read in a park, browse vintage shops and enjoy a cup of coffee that was completely devoured at the moment. A flip phone seemed to be the key to my dream of being “unplugged”.
Social media forced these quick corrections to us all the time. A certain product, service or habit is promised to completely change the way we live. A fitness challenge, 75 hard, should not recognize it physically and mentally. An iPad revives her academic performance. Reading Robert Greenes “The 48 Laws of Power” will make you a leader and visionary. These provisional solutions do not miss any total time waste, but it misses the meaning of pursuing self -improvement. It’s not about finding a healing-it is about changing your attitude. The unplugged is even a victim in this online trend cycle. And although a less digitized lifestyle is a worthy goal, this habit change must come from a place of self -fulfillment and not the external validation.
For those who do not keep up with the latest social media trends -great praise to you -the flip phone has a considerable resolution online. In fact, there was a crusade of anti-social media content that ironically finds the audience on social media platforms. There is a growing wish – especially for young people – to replace the time that they scroll with more fulfilling experiences. This mindfulness is particularly necessary in college, a time in our lives in which time is moving without stress. We should use the best of the top four years of our lives and not ignore you if we overload our cerebrums with short -term content.
But mindfulness is gradually reached. Don’t get me wrong, you and I should probably both spend less time on social media, but there is no wonder purchase that will achieve this goal for us. Although I was tried, I realized that when I buy a flip phone, I would probably only start scrolling on my computer. The same applies to all of these quick corrections: they will never replace the self -discipline.
Lifestyle trends, although they are well meant, is serious. Just as I imagined my perfectly exuberant life through the lens of an outsider, most of these supposedly transformative changes are performative. We do not follow you to improve our own experiences, but to change how our life is perceived.
The need for immediate satisfaction and constant stimulation is the real root of social media addiction, regardless of whether this comes from a smartphone or not. These tendencies can be overcome, but must be through deliberate steps that contain our desire.
A good (and maybe obvious) starting point is to find offline hobbies. Hobbies laid the foundation for a more current life, but require real interest. It is quite a challenge without quitting an exciting alternative without scrolling exciting alternative. On several occasions, I forced myself to try “cool” hobbies, but I gave them up all within a week. Finding a real interest is a surprisingly difficult task. Social media makes it difficult to do something without worrying about what you can look like from outside.
Older generations are a great source of inspiration. Most exist outside the pressure of social media; You don’t need to show how unplugged you are. For example, I come from a bretting family. For a lot of time, the games felt like an interruption between Scroll sessions, but the college made it clear to me how much I really liked them. My parents, grandma and I do not play “trivial persecution” because we make this appear in a certain way, but for experience itself.
We live in an abundance of scary, parasocial trends for lifestyle improvements and often roam the perception of self -motivation, discipline and authenticity, without actually performing them for our own benefit. In order to achieve a fulfilling lifestyle, we have to cancel our telephones for the right reasons.
CJ Lair ’28 can be reached at Craig_lair@brown.edu. Please send answers to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to Opinions@browndailyherald.com.
CJ Lair is a personal columnist at the Brown Daily Herald. He comes from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and Plant to study political science at Brown. This is his first year in which a publication is written, and is particularly interested in political developments and its effects on the Brown community.
