Weekend thinker: Are you addicted to your phone?

Most people are convinced that their digital screens levels are "normal"

Are you addicted to your smartphone?

Anyone who asks that question, these days, tends to hear three basic responses.

* No way. I use my smartphone a lot, just like most other folks. It’s not an addiction. It’s just the world we live in, today.

* Maybe. But there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m just like everyone else. I’d stop, or cut back, but that isn’t possible. It’s just the world we live in, today.

* Mind your own business. That’s a personal question. What are you, some kind of moralistic weirdo who hates technology? This is just the world we live in, today.

Now, let’s ask about social media. In my experience, it’s basically the same three answers.

Hang in there with me for a moment, because I am working my way to the think piece for this Memorial Day weekend. It’s a recent Clement Harrold essay in First Things with this title: “How I Kicked My Phone Habit.”

First Things is, of course, is a culturally conservative journal that is read by plenty of parents, pastors, teachers and counselors. Thus, this is precisely the kind of publication I would like to see addressing Rational Sheep topics. It’s an important forum, in particular, for those who speak to people in pews (or in many, maybe most, Eastern Orthodox Christian settings, worshippers who stand or sit on the floor since there are no pews).

But first, I imagine that some readers are saying, “OK, tmatt, how do you answer that question?”

I answer by raising another very personal question: Do I spend too much time — as a journalist and involuntarily retired mass communications professor — reading news and commentary on my desktop computer?

You see, I would argue that most of the time that I spend on my smartphone is directly linked to the time that I spend reading (or watching or listening) to news and commentary on my computer. Of course, I also stay in touch with friends and family through digital channels. Since I am old, this is primarily email, but social media does come into play.

Ah, but do I “doomscroll”? I would say that this is a big temptation — since quite a few trends in our postmodern world make me feel sad, anxious and-or angry. Is that a troubling side effect of being — well, you know — a journalist and a commentary writer (by trade)? I would say, “Yes.” Is this part of my “vocation” or even “calling”? Yes, it is. That’s a question I frequently discuss with my spiritual father.

How do I fight “doomscrolling”? I try to limit smartphone use to:

(1) One or two specific times in the day (keeping that under 30 minutes);

(2) Using it as a tool to respond the friends and family (the text and social-media versions of answering the telephone in the old days);

(3) Jump into cyberspace (as a substitute for the computer in my office) to seek specific information or links to something timely that is going on in the world.

Yes, there are doomscroll temptations linked to that third option. But they are the same temptations that are linked to the iMac that is on the desk in my study. They are the same temptations that are linked to news and commentary viewing on YouTube (I rarely watch “television,” these days, other than sports, news events or documentaries on something like Prime).

Much of the time that I spend on X is linked to these uses of my computer. I strive to follow people on that platform that I respect, on the left and right. Why? I want to know what they are reading. I’m that guy who, after reading a strong take on X, often responds: Do you have a URL for the source on that?

My son has, for years, offered this answer when people ask what I do for a living: “He reads all the time and then he writes about the stuff that he reads (or words to that effect).”

You know, sort of like what I am doing at this moment.