It’s a common refrain spat out on social media by people with more aspirations than intentions. Every once in a while, someone will declare, as if they are reading a royal decree off a scroll, that they are going to be using their phones less and interacting with the world more. It usually causes an eye roll or two, as it will likely not happen… but according to the stats, it might actually be happening.
The internet was once a proud, mighty place where creators from all over the world joined together to have fun, make fun things, and occasionally get into arguments that would descend into death threats, but what loving family hasn’t exchanged a death threat or two?
That started to change once the wealthy and powerful started staking their claims across the internet, turning a once weird and beautiful place into a toxic corporate wasteland that only benefits their own interests, a.k.a. their own bottom lines.
Public research organization TalkerResearch conducted a survey of 2,000 Americans that revealed about half now deliberately carve out screen-free time, and most say the decision is paying off: they feel more productive, more present, and less like life is happening exclusively behind a thin slip of tech in their hands.
Makes sense, since roughly 70 percent of online time leaves people feeling lonely and disconnected, ironically, the opposite of what the internet used to be before it was explicitly taken over by a variety of vastly wealthy and powerful entities with the express intent of dividing, conquering, and making money off of the pissed off fiefdoms.
The biggest drivers of this shift are Gen Z. Sixty-three percent now intentionally unplug, the highest rate of any generation. Millennials aren’t far behind, followed by Gen X and baby boomers.
Survey data is painting a picture of what happens when your life is dominated by screen time. People feel overwhelmed, riddled with anxiety, irritable even to those they love and respect, and filled with a constant creeping sense of dissatisfaction.
In response to all that nastiness, Americans are setting clearer boundaries. More than half of Gen Z and millennials now schedule daily offline stretches to unwind from a day of near-constant exposure to the thing that was supposed to help them unwind until it got corrupted.
With the time that used to be taken up by a screen, people are writing in notebooks, reading printed books, using paper calendars, playing board games, and buying alarm clocks that keep phones out of the bedroom.
On the surface, it sounds like nostalgia for the hollow sake of aesthetics, but considering that tactile physical objects generate significantly less stress than their digital counterparts, research suggests that this might be part of a larger, still-growing trend.
The post Young People Are Ditching Screens to Find Happiness, and It’s Working appeared first on VICE.
