Screen Versus Real Life Activities
Caroline Veine, 11, observes her daily screen time spent on her phone.
photo by Caroline Veine
When you’re sitting in your bed, staring at your phone, do you ever wonder what else you could possibly be doing? Maybe it could be homework, working out, playing with your dog, hanging out with friends, or even something else. According to a Washington Post article, teens are spending about 9 hours a day on media activities: this includes time on computers, phones, ipads, and listening to music. To put it in perspective, there are only 24 hours in a day, and 24 divided by three is eight. Eight hours. This means teens are spending over one third of their day on technology.
As we know, electronics and screens have a huge impact on our lives. But is that interfering with our real life interactions and activities? Each interaction we have in life has different values and purposes, but real life activities should be more valuable than online ones. 87% of SJHS students surveyed by the Wind-Up say real life activities have more value than screen activities.
“Real life activities make our bodies and our minds more focused, they make us feel better, and they are a lot of fun... You can watch videos but nothing beats the actual experience,” Grace Rommel, 9, said when asked what value real life activities have over electronic ones.
One of the cons about screen interactions is they take away social interaction, according to Henry Ford Health System. When we spend too much time on our phones talking that way, we don’t get the true experience of talking with someone face-to-face. Take texting for instance. How many times have you or someone else taken a text the wrong way? Maybe the message was supposed to be funny, but the person receiving it took offense. If they would have said the same words in person and had the aid of facial expressions, your friend would have made it understood it was meant to be funny.
Not only our relationships, screens can also impact our creativity. Learning how to play an instrument, make music, play sports, draw, or even color— all these activities use some sort of creativity, and you aren't able to do that all on tech. These types of activities are essential for children and teens to do. They are great life skills and are things we should do in our daily life.
Now, screens still have their benefits and can be very useful, like their help this year. All the great ways we have been able to use computers to continue learning through Google Meets and Zoom calls have been a huge factor in getting people still interacting. But the majority of us can agree learning and working in-person is better because you still have that physical interaction with others.
Spending too much time glued to a screen has negative impacts on people. That is why we need to value real life interactions and truly live in the moment to experience life— it doesn’t need to be experienced through a screen.