You wake up one morning and realise you can’t hear the birdsong of 2012, you scroll on your phone for half an hour and remember none of it. All of your memories and life exists trapped behind a screen. Life at the touch of a button. Your mother was right, it’s that damn phone.
Through smartphones, social media, streaming platforms, clustered camera rolls and notes apps filled with shopping lists, love poems, and unexplained late-night thoughts, we have grown accustomed to everything being handed to us through a screen, losing sight of the art of inconvenience. I must make it clear that I am not unaffected by doomscrolling, making a million playlists or having screen time longer than I sleep. We all do it. Yet convenience doesn’t always offer the vest value.
Using a film or digital camera restores patience and lets you live in the moment. I once took a photo of a band performing in a bar; my flash was so bright they stopped singing – blinding your subject is part of the joy! Before you pick up your phone to snap a million pictures that will lie forgotten in your camera roll, consider if you really want to be 30 years old, and the only trace of your life has been captured in your Snapchat ‘memories’.
You might be thinking ‘but I couldn’t live without Spotify’ or – if you’re a sociopath – Apple Music. My solution: CDs. Second-hand CDs are sold for less than a Greggs sausage roll. Although they don’t taste quite as good, you’ll never appreciate what you’re listening to more. Plus, buying whole albums prepares you for answering the ‘name 5 songs’ question when you next wear your favourite musician’s merch in public.
The easiest swap and arguably the most effective is implementing a notebook. Put away your word documents and pick up a pen and paper. Without sounding like a Crayola advert, the possibilities are endless. Notes apps become overrun much like a camera roll – dumping grounds for things you want to remember. Make a list, write a book, become a caricaturist. There’s nothing more harrowing than a blank page.
Last summer my phone was a 10-year-old bedazzled Samsung flip. Now I’m not saying buying an artefact that blares like a megaphone and can’t take a clear picture will solve your screen addiction, but it might do you some good. Life becomes quieter. Not being able to immediately start scrolling makes you stop and consider why you feel the need to in the first place.
Despite the risk of being called performative – speaking from experience – you have nothing to lose and while I’ve only listed four major replicable aspects of your online life, if you really want to commit yourself, Letterboxd can be swapped for a media journal, Pinterest for scrap books and ‘brain rot’ for your own opinions. Convenience is a plague, and the cure is physical media.
Hi I’m Aimée, I’m a second year English & Creative Writing and Journalism student. In my free time when I’m not reading or writing I play for the strath women’s lacrosse team!
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