If the Internet is a Drug, I Have Been High

I’d like to start this post with a few questions: 

• Have you ever been disappointed in yourself as a person/parent? 
• Have you ever been concerned with your children’s choices?
• Have you ever felt like you would perhaps be better suited to the life of an unencumbered waitress (or waiter, I know there are some male readers) on some beach, making Piña Coladas for the sunburnt tourists? 

Yeah, me too. 

Lately my angst has been with screen time. My youngest child David is 15. He no longer wants to build Legos or read books. He wants to dominate online worlds when he is given time to be on his computer, which he built. 

My 19-year old son Thomas spent a year at Pratt Community College to be a lineman (think telephone pole, not football), and in his ample free time (they only had school four days a week) he loved to play online games with David. In fact, Thomas bought himself a TV screen so he could have better graphics. (Thomas is now working as a lineman, putting big poles in the ground and working his booty off in the heat of summer. When he has down time I think he is sleeping.)

My two daughters, Bridget and Malaysia, both 21 years of age, love love love their phones. 

The world wide web has certainly captured the hearts, minds, and lives around here, even with the boundaries, guidelines and filters that we’ve had in place over the years. (When our children were in elementary and middle school we did not allow computer games during the school week; we do not give our children smart phones until they are 16 years old or older.)

So what’s a mom to do? Well, to be honest, at first I thought about throwing these kids away and starting over. 

Ha. I jest. I love them to the moon and back and they are productive, fun-loving and kind people. We have fun together. I LOVE LOVE LOVE talking to my children. They just get sucked into online worlds more often than I’d like. 

Several weeks ago I looked up from my phone. People. I had been drawn into the vortex of social media and an hour went by again, faster than I could have imagined. 

My phone in my hand, I rolled my eyes at myself. I knew better. I knew the data, the stats. There are algorithms that keep us on our devices, sophisticated formulas and equations created by powerful enterprises that want our attention in the Land of the Digital World—and we have responded almost naturally. I mean, it is so pretty, so alluring, so filled with interesting, funny, crazy things to laugh at and enjoy—it is easy to just nod and think to myself, “This is our new normal.” 

Pass the chips and salsa and let’s settle in for another new series. 

However, in my heart of hearts, I don’t think another season of that show that everyone is talking about is what Jesus had in mind when he said he would give us an abundant life. And that is my biggest beef with the internet. It offers satisfaction but cannot deliver because it is never done. There is always one more thing to watch, one more reel to see, one more, one more, one more. It’s never-ending. And when I get stuck in that realm, I don’t have time for what I know is essential. 

I want—need—to get back to a more sane way of living, for me and for my children. 

Think about your own life. How is your use of your smartphone working for you and yours? No judgment. I love my phone, and I love how easily I can find information. What I don’t love is how easily one quick glance can turn into me wasting my LIFE. 

This is the ish: 

1. The internet is a drug.
2. I have been high. 

Sad truth. But nothing can change until it is exposed.  

The first thing I did (several weeks ago) was remove email and social media off of my phone, which basically turned my phone into a phone. Within minutes I found myself reaching for my phone (the dopamine dump occurs when we see our devices, which propels us to reach for it, knowing the reward that we will get when we open it), but since it was just a phone, there was nothing even remotely rewarding from opening it. 

Soon enough my brain reprogrammed itself, and I could be near my phone without Fourth of July going off in my brain.

Isn’t that cool? I learned about the elimination of bad habits in the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. Interestingly, I had always thought his book was the Bible on habit formation. Turns out that he didn’t come up with the info in his book, he simply picked flowers that others planted, but he arranged them in such a way that they were truly accessible. He made it all pretty. 

(And that was needed. Several of the books I read, which were precursors to his, were incredibly detailed and…incredibly boring.) 

You’ve probably heard that there is a four-stage pattern to our habits: 

1. Cue
2. Craving
3. Response
4. Reward

Our brain goes through these steps without even thinking, which is why the average smartphone user picks up their phone a million times a day. But get this: “If a behavior is insufficient in any of the four stages, it will not become a habit…Without the first three steps, a behavior will not occur. Without all four, a behavior will not be repeated” (Clear 49-50). 

When I removed the reward of scrolling through Never Never Land from my phone, the habit of picking up my phone was stopped.

Now, let me keep this real. Without my phone, I think I felt a little lost. I found myself picking up an old Nintendo DS and playing Virus Buster. 

As I played that fun little game, I just knew I could get to the next level. It fed my competitive nature quite well. It was mind-numbing in a good way. I could take “the edge off” of my day by sitting down and playing it. But then I realized that I had simply switched focus from my phone to another device. Wow. 

I tell you that because it wasn’t like I just deleted my email and social media accounts, wiped my hands on my jeans and was free. I got stuck in another little (offline but still alluring) web first. Oopsie Daisy. 

I think that’s funny and also kind of sad. But if I take a step back from myself, I know that our brains are biologically wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain while conserving energy. It’s called the Motivational Triad. And again, we are up against some powerful algorithms in the online world. Smart, smart people have figured out ways to keep us digitally distracted. 

I’d love to get your read on this. Are you wrestling with your screen time? Are you concerned about your children’s screen time? Is it something you don’t even think about? Are you a sunburnt tourist on a beach right now, sipping Piña Coladas?

Talk to me. 

My best email: [email protected]