I’ve Got The Whole World In My Hands…Now What?

I spend about 4.5 hours per day on my phone, and I’m pleasantly surprised to find myself slightly below the national average of between 5 and 6 hours per day. Most of my time is spent going back and forth between Instagram and Twitter, meaning that I am carving out more than a sixth of my day for pretty much just these apps. I would never carve out 4.5 hours for something I actually enjoy; I don’t even get 4.5 hours of sleep some nights.

So why does this tiny bright rectangle get all of my attention? Should I be worried about that? I’ve spent much of the last year and a half thinking about my relationship to my phone and social media, and on the new podcast, Offline, Jon Favreau verbalized something I didn’t even know I’ve been experiencing — my brain *constantly* needs new information. I am not content to sit and daydream like I once was, I need to consume content at all times.

I don’t beat myself up for this. I use the technology of the day in a comparable way to my peers, and I’m not using social media to enable the downfall of our democracy. I mean, who would do that? Still, a little self-reflection never hurt anyone, so I spent some time trying to figure out why I have this unshakable need to constantly refresh my feed and fill my brain with information I know will make me miserable. Don’t worry, this isn’t one of those think pieces that ultimately declares millennials are garbage for loving screens so much. On the contrary, I think the world wide web could be a good thing, if we could only figure out how to harness its potential.

The Internet is a powerful tool of mass communication. In a time when American workers are standing up for their rights in the workplace more than ever, what role does social media play? Consider what happened when Amazon workers in Alabama tried to unionize earlier this year. It was reported that the company went as far as changing the timing of the traffic lights outside of its warehouse to minimize communication between workers. How does chit chat between co-workers have Jeff Bezos quaking in his astronaut boots? Well, you don’t know what you don’t know, and some people just do not know their rights in the workplace until someone else tells them. Social media allows people to learn their rights and pass that knowledge onto others. It allows us to shine a bright light onto those who may seek to wrong us.

Take the International Alliance of Theatrical State Employees, for example. Raise your hand if you had literally never heard of this labor union before they almost went on strike recently. I hadn’t, at least, but thanks to social media I’ve learned so much about the unacceptable work conditions these union members have been fighting tooth-and-nail to change. I didn’t seek out this information, but many of the people in the entertainment industry who I follow on Twitter and Instagram have shared information and raised awareness on this issue. With every share, more people get the memo that workers across the board have rights and those rights can be fought for.

But can we save the world by sharing posts online? The jury is out on that one, but I will say that I have learned a tremendous amount from information people have shared online. The term “virtue signaling” gets thrown around a lot — mostly by my Worst Uncle™ — but isn’t it a good thing that we are even discussing complex topics of social justice? Would it really be better if we just went back to sharing cat videos, never challenging our perception of right and wrong?

Reader, we’ve reached page 2 of the Google Doc where I’m drafting this, so I think we can get personal now: I grew up in a predominantly white town of about 8,000 people in a time when you still didn’t really talk to “strangers on the Internet.” I lived in a bubble of white Americana, but how was I supposed to know that?

I am so grateful that the universe has introduced me to so many beautifully diverse friends from all walks of life, and for the unlearning and learning I’ve experienced as I’ve gotten older. For the purpose of this conversation I want to focus solely on what role social media has played in this process.

The intimate view into someone else’s life that social media provides — no matter how carefully crafted — has been an enormous resource in this process of learning and unlearning. The person in a wheelchair who struggles with making friends because people don’t want to make plans that are accessible for her; the Black mother who is terrified for her sons growing up in America; these are real people sharing their genuine pain through posts.

It can be a deeply vulnerable experience sharing your thoughts and feelings online, and it’s not always well-received. But like I said, you don’t know what you don’t know, and those who share their personhood with the world teach us all to expand our understanding of what “life” looks like beyond our own lived experiences.

Social media has always been a fantastic resource for people with disabilities to find community, and during the pandemic all of us have relied on it more than ever as a primary way to connect with others. That being said, I’m actually starting to think this Internet thing is here to stay.

So, dear reader, I’m probably not going to cut back on my screen time, and neither are you. I don’t judge us for using the technology available to us any more than I would judge someone from 100 years ago for using whatever snazzy gadgets were available to them.

If we are going to devote so much of our waking hours (and if you’re like me, the hours that you’re meant to be sleeping) to our phones, how can we use that to our advantage rather than our detriment? We have the power to give strangers an intimate view of our hopes, dreams, fears, needs — really anything we want them to know. How can we harness that to create meaningful change in the real world? How can we combat the lies and misinformation that may outweigh the benefits we get from easily accessible mass communication? How can we stop doomscrolling for long enough to find joy in the real world?

I don’t pretend to have the answers to these questions, but with the click of a button I can ask the world: what do you guys think?