We’re wasting time in the wrong way

Michael Gabriel ’28 is a history major. Besides writing and editing opinion pieces, he contributes an issue of his Willy and Mary comic almost every edition. He is a big baseball fan, likes the outdoors and is always happy to talk to anyone about anything. Contact him at mdgabriel@wm.edu.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

If you walk down Duke of Gloucester Street when the weather is nice, you’ll often see a lot of older couples walking around. This is their retirement. Their work, career and family wise, is done, so now they can just sit back and relax. That said, you’ve got to think that they all have a decent amount of regrets in their life, whether it be about wasted time or opportunities they didn’t take.  

In that sense, I’m sure we’ll all be in the same boat once we are old and retired (hopefully), but will we? I started to think about what wasting time meant for them. Skipping class to play pick-up basketball with their hall mates? Reading a book or going to the movies instead of studying for an important exam? Just hanging out with their friends on a Tuesday night? I’m not saying we don’t do any of these things today, but for us these are actually productive uses of our time, not wastes.  

There are days when I just find myself doomscrolling or constantly swiping through Instagram stories for hours. In the moment, nothing seems too bad, but those hours rack up, and I would argue they compound over time. We think we’re having fun when, in reality, we’re just hooked. These phones and their social media platforms are literally engineered to keep us all glued to their screens. In fact, while writing this little paragraph, I’ve checked my phone a solid 10 times for no real reason at all. It’s bad. 

Doomscrolling is the main culprit, but the problem makes itself known in other ways. How many people have their headphones on during their two-minute walk across the Sunken Garden? How many people go straight to their phone when they’re in line for food at Commons Dining Hall? And for the love of God, can you really not take a s— without having your phone on you? We feel the need to fill any void of silence and boredom with constant entertainment. Can you even remember the last TikTok, reel, etc. you watched? The answer is no. It is alright to just sit with your own thoughts sometimes. 

There is also just an information overload. Imagine you’re in a football stadium. There are some hundred thousand people there. You look to your left and right, and you can clearly make out the faces of people for a good 10 seats, but then you look across to the other side of the stadium, and people just become blobs of color. Imagine if you could see exactly what every single person was doing in that stadium? You’d be overwhelmed, right? That is what social media allows us to do. You’re able to see exactly what everyone else is doing at any moment. That shouldn’t be possible. Our brains aren’t wired for that much information.

Then there is the pressure to contribute to it all by creating posts or stories for others to see. So much of our mental energy then becomes tied to how others interact with our posts or stories when, in the end, none of it really matters. 

Once again, I think about how much time and energy we spend with our phones and social media, and I wonder how I’ll look back at that time and energy spent when I’m old. It is literal days worth of time that I can never get back. 

What’s ironic is that my mom would always lecture my sister and I about how bad smart phones were for us, and I would just shrug it off as her overreacting. I think she may have had a point. Part of me wants to just get rid of my phone entirely, but in today’s world that really isn’t feasible unless everyone does the same.

Since this little opinion piece can’t convince everyone to do that, I’m just going to leave you all off with a suggestion: One day this week or next, try to leave your phone in your dorm and go out. I know your anxiety might go through the roof, but it doesn’t have to be for the entire day. You could just leave it for an hour or two. See what happens. Maybe it’ll change the way you see things. I just can’t emphasize enough how valuable your time is. If you’re going to waste it, at least have a cool story to tell after you do.