Learning to pass the time in my seven fifty-minute high school class periods was something of a game. I would rearrange the minutes in my head like a mathematical story problem, dividing “fifty minutes” into “thirty minutes + two sets of ten minutes.” I learned to mentally consider time in terms of media. An episode of Parks and Recreation is about thirty minutes, with ads, I would think to myself, chin in hand, staring at the clock’s ticking hand. And ten minutes is about 3-5 pop songs. So I just have an episode of Parks and Recreation and 6-10 songs until this class period ends. By that logic, that’s like a third of a season of Parks and Recreation and about 70 songs to get through a full day of high school. With each half hour that passed, I considered another episode watched, another album listened to.
Idleness is a modern devil, and as such, I’ve always been eager to fill my time. As a teenager, I scampered from high school, to work, to dance classes, to home to complete homework and eat dinner in an expedited manner. The mad daily dash was exhausting, but it kept my hands and mind busy. I didn’t have time to consider deeper, darker matters germinating in the corners of my mind, nor did I think to as a child. I placed stake in the idea that denying a plant water and sunlight causes it to die. A life’s calling, my relationships, childhood trauma, and grief - all could stay sun-deprived. The few minutes I had to think about things were in gridlock traffic on the 405, exiled to my Volkswagon Jetta. It was in these idle, motionless moments that I would let out an occasional scream or a sob. When the traffic would resume again, I’d turn up Kim Petras and keep it moving, grateful for the next thing to focus on.
One of the common corporate pleasantries that people often exchange with me is something along the lines of a despondent “The day is going by so slowly,” or an energetic “The day is flying by!” I understand the distinction - the thrill of the day reaching its end, no longer in search of stimulation. The brain and body at rest, at long last. Particularly in a work environment, I get the enthusiasm. When your time is essentially owned and directed by a larger entity, relief is gleaned in fewer minutes between now and the clock striking 5 PM. People count down the day’s end like the New Year’s Eve ball drop, exalting the moment they can access their ever-sought-after free time, which they own and can spend however they please, like hard-earned cash.
Nonetheless, it’s unsettling to think about the joy that’s garnered in the day moving along as quickly as possible. Given the option, I think most would agree that days are best spent feeling engaged in a manner that’s nourishing for the mind and soul. But that’s unfortunately not a reality for many who are bogged down with unpleasant, mind-numbing daily responsibilities at home and in the workplace. If you gave most people the option to press a fast-forward button on their life, I doubt they would capitalize and yet here we are. We rush to access our precious idle moments, clawing for the stimulation that we’ve been denied for most of the average workday. But in the absence of expedited, healthful engagement, many of us turn to what’s most readily available: our phones.
I often harshly divide my most recent years as an online person into my time Before and After TikTok (BT and AT, if you will). I transitioned into the second period after deleting TikTok from my phone in August 2022. One of my biggest concerns leading up to the deletion was how I would fill my time. What will I do as I eat breakfast? How will I spend the ten minutes between when I’m ready for work and when I leave for the office? What will I do in the hours before bed? Thinking through these once genuine questions makes my stomach flip.
Since removing the app from my phone, things have been good. I’ve been reading the most voraciously I have in my adult life. I’m sleeping better. I’m breathing through my nose more. But I am neither completely clean of phone addiction, nor free from the impending dread of a non-distracted mind. My attention now just gets sucked into the mental vortexes that are Twitter and Instagram Reels. I can almost always be found with an earbud in, blaring music or a podcast while I cook and commute. But I do feel even more acutely conscious of how I and others spend, yearn for, and avoid our idle moments. How eager we are to fill up time.
At red lights in taxis, I’ve witnessed drivers whip out their phones to cram in a few TikToks before the light flips to green. I’ve observed passersby in subway terminals, shimmying across the platform with their phone in hand, thumb scrolling, and sound roaring. On Christmas, I sat on the couch with my little sisters for what turned into an hour, peering over their shoulders at their screens. Everywhere I look people are waging a war against idleness - all of it coming into sharper relief than ever before. Deleting that scary app from my phone was a small victory, but I’m not completely discharged - I don’t know if I could ever be. Like developing a tolerance for a drug, our brains almost instinctually become numb, compelling us to seek out stimuli even more engaging than what we last ingested. Even more titillating material. Otherwise, time moves as slow as a snail, the clock’s tiny hand trudging through a jar of molasses.
I’m uncomfortable in moments where my attention is only partially demanded. These moments are typically the “in-between” times - the few minutes between life happenings. When I’m in the waiting room of a doctor’s office and need to have one ear exposed to hear my name called. When I’m waiting for an email or phone call. When my friend is running twenty minutes late and I have to fill the now vacant time. It’s these thumb-twiddling junctures when I’m left in limbo - not free enough to fully immerse myself in phone universe, but not engaged enough with anything externally to put my phone down. I’m left with me and my thoughts - my brain and fingers falling idle, begrudgingly.
When you wait in a public space without an AirPod tucked in your ear or a device in hand, you’re behaving outside of social conventions, which is almost uncomfortable for people. I tried doing this at one of my most recent dentist appointments and felt practically naked. I noticed people stealing small glances - What is she looking at? What am I even looking at? I thought to myself. Where am I supposed to look? I settled my eyes on a vase of flowers on the receptionist’s desk and just thought. I challenged myself to settle into a daydream but found that distracting with doors opening and closing. So I just let the thoughts come and go and continuously fought the urge to pick up my phone and settle it into its designated notch on my pinky. I just thought, and when my name was finally called, I followed the hygienist to my chair with a clear and calm disposition. Much clearer and calmer than if I had just watched twenty Instagram Reels. Maybe, like many matters, the only way out is simply through.
Another place I’ve adopted this strategy is in the ceaseless taxi line at John F. Kennedy Airport. Rather than having my head tucked down, dragged lower by the weight of my backpack - phone balanced in one hand, luggage being dragged by the other - I decided to right my posture and just be bored. Tuning into my surroundings, I actually found entertainment, of a kind. I observed many airport horrors and delights that I otherwise wouldn’t - a mother yelling at the taxi dispatcher, children zigzagging through the roped stanchions, a family of lost, overpacked wide-eyed tourists wandering, a tired couple exchanging weary smiles. I seemed to grow a few inches taller. And before I knew it, it was my turn to step into a taxi.
In this brilliant and hilarious article,
offers an unusual alternative to being on your phone in those fidgety, empty moments: staring at walls. There are moments in which pulling out a book or playing music isn’t quite suitable. When we have to marinate in half-attention purgatory - in traffic, in a line, in a taxi queue - and can neither fully check out nor fully check in. It feels silly to say that staring at walls is a profound proposition. But there are countless jam-packed, demanding moments in life when we do long for boredom. With increasingly addictive stimuli at our fingertips, we’d benefit from packing our patience - from soaking up those sweet, boring blank walls, knowing that there are so few moments when our mind is truly offered quiet. Pretend it’s the 1980s. Let the time drip like candle wax knowing there will only be fewer occasions when it feels like that again.Our inability to wait in lines without our phones is bolstered by a world that makes entertainment increasingly automated. As such, my article “Entertaining Ourselves In Automation Nation,” is a good accompaniment to this piece, as is my essay on quitting TikTok. Feel free to check them out if you’re interested.
Their war is not just against idleness but also a bid for the attention of young people's imaginations.
I still have a flip phone in 2024, AMA ;)