Trading Dreams for Dopamine

The weather in Michigan has been really cold, so I was glad for the opportunity to stay home yesterday.  It was meant to be a relaxing day - which I knew would include my phone.  Before I finally put it down last night, I decided to check my screen time. 

Holy cats…  6 hours and 26 minutes!  With my daily average being OVER 5 hours!  Normally, I listen to a lot of podcasts and that is counted as screen time. 

But yesterday, I didn’t listen to anything!!  All of that time was my face glued to the screen.  

I’m disgusted with myself.  I am at the time of my life when the clock is really ticking.  I’m 56 years old and who knows how much time I have left.  Am I really going to give it to technology?  

The scariest thing is that I never thought about it once during the day yesterday!  I was just numbed out.  What if yesterday was my last day on this planet?

It is a sharp reality that if I choose to pick up my phone first thing in the morning, then I will not exercise.  If I don’t exercise, I become weaker.  It is already happening.  I am not overweight, but I am not in great shape at all.  I belong to the group of women who are small boned and at risk for osteoporosis and the ever-popular hunchback.

I’ve been reading a lot about health and menopause and one thing stands out.  If I do not have my health, then literally nothing else matters.

If I am in pain, I will not be able to write.

If I am weak, and sick and tired… none of my dreams will be achievable anymore and I have a lot of dreams.  In fact, I have given myself the title “The Queen of the Hairbrained Schemes!”  I always have a new business idea on the back burner, I’m always writing my next book or essay in my head, or planning a new art project.

 I know my phone is stealing my time.  Bizarrely, that hasn’t seemed to raise any red flags for me.  But this morning, I am clearly understanding that it is stealing my body and directly impacting the amount of time I have left on this earth and the quality of it.

 My husband has been hot on ChatGPT lately.  He uses it exclusively now instead of Google to ask questions and get information.  After a couple of weeks, he estimated that about 30% of the information that it provides is completely WRONG.  It scours the web for what you are asking about but it cannot filter accurate information from garbage.

All of the time I spend watching videos about vitamins, exercise, self-help and health are almost surely wrong at least 30% of the time too!  Yet this is my main source of entertainment.  I am smart enough to do my own research, but I am wasting my time with a device and platforms that are there to steal my time and fill my head with partial truths. 

This is not who I am.  It is not what I believe to be right and healthy in general.  By not actively making a choice as to how I use technology, I allow it to control me.

Is it called a cell phone because it puts us in a prison?