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WHIBBS: Don’t judge my screen time

“The time flies by as I stare into my phone screen, but sometimes that’s exactly what I need”
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“What is my favourite non-productive way to waste time?”

Last week as I pondered that question a dozen things ran through my mind ranging from board games to reading.

After careful contemplation I landed on a docu-series I can blow through in a day and Animal Crossing, but in reality a great majority of my time is spent even less productively than that.

The insights my Screen Time app provides are concerning, especially when it comes to the “social networking” category.

Instagram should have no place at the top of my “most used” list. I only post like once a month, if that, but the memes are what sucks me in.

I follow so many meme accounts I barely see the photos of people I actually know in my timeline.

I cannot even begin to estimate how many endless hours have been spent scrolling and laughing at content that has no reason to be funny. Same goes for Vine compilations on YouTube, but that’s a different story.

Is this something I should be admitting publicly? Probably not, but there has to be an even more mindless and unproductive way to spend your time, right?

The answer is yes and it is called BuzzFeed quizzes, which shockingly enough, is another large chunk of my screen time.

I once took a quiz to find out what type of trash I was and it said, “dumpster fire.”

A second and totally unrelated quiz told me I was 99.9 per cent trash.

I disagreed with neither.

These quizzes have been eating away at my time for years. I used to have to delete the app from my phone during exams season as a way to force myself to focus.

Most of the time the quizzes aren’t even relatable to me, but I still take them.

“Which character from show I haven’t seen are you most like?” I don’t know, let’s find out!

So, I guess the biggest question is, if I know these apps are not how I want to be using my time why keep them on my phone?

How, and why, do I spend hours upon hours of the day scrolling and answering questions in quizzes for no reason?

Honestly, I think the reason is exactly that, to do something for no reason.

The time absolutely flies by as I stare into my phone screen, but sometimes that is exactly what I need.

A good docuseries needs me to pay attention and be active in following the story. Animal Crossing needs me to think about what tasks need to be done and figure out the best way to fence in a flower garden.

Scrolling needs neither. Most of the time I don’t even remember what I’ve looked at or what result I got from the quiz.

It’s nice to be able to shut your brain down and do something so dumb it’s able to make you laugh.

After a long day of using my brain it’s a great escape without having to go to bed at 7 p.m.

No matter how high my screen time gets and how much meme knowledge I gain I won’t feel ashamed of it because I know it’s something I need to keep me relaxed.

And, hey, at least it’s not TikTok.