Reclaiming my Attention

I’m going on 2 months of removing Instagram, Facebook, Threads and all news apps off my phone. I’ve reduced my phone email to just 2 accounts, eliminating unnecessary noise too. My daily screen time average last week was 2.5 hours. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a small amount to some, but that is easily down 75% from earlier this year. And honestly, I hope to never go back to being on my phone more. I’ve learned so much about myself and this tech, and I want to share some raw and unedited thoughts with you that may either delight or frighten you. Or possibly a little of both.

What I’m learning is that my attention is a precious resource. Time is the resource tech companies are profiting off of: my time. Your time. They want our time in the form of being glued to our screen. They calculate how long we linger or how quickly we swipe through or away to inform the algorithm what to feed us next. And yes, I do see this as a kind of food. Our phones do seem to be our daily bread. How many pick it up first thing in the morning? This undeniably useful camera-camcorder-phone informs how we think about ourselves. It shapes how we think about the world. They are feeding us ideas, some nefarious, some good.

But the thing I keenly understand right now is that there’s no competing with real life, even though I believe that’s their end game. My time off screens has become richer with each day as my senses return, senses I didn’t know had been so dulled by the lure of the glass. I sense my hearing attuning to the nuanced language of my surroundings: the roaring scuffle of walnut leaflets as they tumble across the deck; the deafening scrape of my shoe ungluing itself from the hardwood floors where the tomato juice dribbled onto the floor mere hours earlier. This one is a distinct form of onomatopoeia, if you listen for it. S t i c k. I sense my sight attuning to the glistening light that cascades across the garden on a sunny morning, cloaked in late season dew that hearkens of colder days. I can’t stop watching so I invite time, my own precious time, to slip through my fingers as I laze away a good 20 minutes with nature, fully immersed – and fully unplugged — chasing the glistening light around the garden like a child trying to catch a balloon.

How we listen and why we listen are questions marinating inside my soul right now. It’s a kind of freedom I forgot I had, the agency to turn down the volume. The invitation to shut off the phone. The desire to tune out the noise completely. And tune in. Strangely, one of the first things I did the week I broke up with social media was stopped listening to my radio in the car. I don’t even play music often anymore, but more importantly, I no longer stream podcasts or MPR (it’s talk radio all day long). It was repulsive to me to continue to feed myself information (laced with ads) all the time. The more of a rest I had, the more of a rest I wanted.

And in this rest is a kind of friendship with myself. A reacquainting. A recognizing. An indulging in a kind of self care that is beyond market economics: a reclaiming of my time by removing the ad-forward noise of my life. And in doing so I feel a kind of peace and creative freedom slowly healing.

I frankly don’t miss the extra noise. Yes, I was feeling a bit lonelier at first, and I did miss the attention, which should be no surprise really. But it made me mad that so much of my day was framed around seeing myself on screen or responding to people talking about something I shared. But I would call a friend, workout, cook, bake, pick up my knitting, or go into the garden. Without expectations of sharing or performing, the garden feels expansive not constrictive. I marvel at the late season butterflies. They seem even later this season. The skippers flocked to the gomphrena and the clouded sulphur, the cute spotted yellow ones, not to be confused with a cabbage white, transform a momentary annoyance into a sustained pleasure. They signal apple season, the arrival of a first frost and the digging of potatoes. They dance more casually and are larger that my garden nemesis, the cabbage whites. It’s a carefree end of season, and their relaxed state relaxes me. I sit and just take it all in. Wasps, bumblebees, and honeybees intermingle too, dipping and sipping and swerving. If I was performing for others, I’d not be attuned to the details of this day. I’d have been trying to get the best video or photo to load into my stories to keep them live so my account would continue to be “seen” by others. And now, all I want is to be seen by myself, but that didn’t come without some confusing days.

What I missed most at first was sharing videos. I missed recording and sharing my daily tidbits, things that in reality I recorded multiple times before sharing, telling and retelling my story until I was satisfied before sharing with the world. Then reality struck me. So much of what I contribute to is a culture of narcissism. My camera roll is full of  …. me. Me talking to myself. Me making myself laugh in this intimate kind of way, confessing what I haven’t done or what I got away with this week by procrastinating in the garden. My confessions amuse me, but really I’m performing. I’m performing for public consumption. I’m performing for you. Because people want to consume our private lives these days. It’s an insatiable drive to live vicariously, and I’m certainly prone to enjoy a binge reality TV show or to watch others garden or share theirs. This is the thing I now miss least. And I feel grateful to have centered my privacy again after 8 years of daily (over)sharing.

Which had me wondering about something. If everyone on Instagram -- 100 million active users, let say for these purposes, which I’m guessing is a gross underestimate -- watches 10 minutes of videos a day, that is the equivalent of 1,141 years. Let’s time travel back 1,141 years for a minute. That would put us back at 882 AD. I’d guess in many ways, that’s exactly what the algorithm wants: collective regression.

They want us to follow, without questioning. They want to maintain our attention. Many days we want to be pacified, want the aches and noise and stress of our days to evaporate. We reach for a glass of wine, a sugary treat, an endorphin rush from an intense workout, and our other addiction, that glass screen. That screen surely succeeded at containing my attention and in doing so lining their pocketbooks, with a lingering aftertaste of personal insecurity. This relationship will never be balanced. It won’t ever be something that cares for us because they are hunting us, and we are what they so desperately need to consume. They are consuming our time, our precious time. Even just 10 minutes from each of us is years of advertising dollars. And by choosing to participate we are consumed by a barrage of humans publicly self-medicating by being gobsmackingly stupid.

But that’s just the thing. I want to be gobsmacked too. I want life to rush at me every day with such intention that I am burning alive. I want the earth to saturate my being from my roots to my crown, electrifying me. Our modern lives are designed to starve us of this joy, but we are ultimately in control. Our modern lives prey on our ability to be reprogrammed. But when I’m gobsmacked by everyday wonder, I feel at deeply at home. At home in the awe and wonder that everyday busyness tamps down. Stomps out. Stows away.

So I’m tending to the tamped ground. I’m planting seeds over the stomped patches. I’m dusting off the stowed away treasures. Because once you reclaim your time, you can’t stop witnessing the minor and major moments of life surrounding you. And you don’t want to.

I want to witness every single clinging cottonwood leaf’s final severe, the moment they decide they’ve given all they can and let go. Cut the tether from their mother and let the wind carry them on. It’s a gift of trust, to witness this loss. How do trees know when to cut ties? We often carry things with us for years longer than needed, fearing the severing pain. This is why I love autumn. I love the trees cheering each other on with their pom pom shakes that glimmer in the sunlight, bringing a levity and joy to an ending. As the glittering cottonwood showers the front yard with golden petals, the nearby handkerchief farewells of the swaying black walnut trees move at a lumbering pace, like a wise old friend helping you find your breath amid the fear and panic of jumping off a cliff.

I’m here to encourage you to take the time and space you need to care for yourself, especially during this very long and consequential week.