An Ode to Screen Time
There’s nothing I love more than looking at backlit, digital screens. I’ve traveled the world, built stuff, loved and lost too many times to count, and I’ve found nothing compares to the thrill of seeing what new things I can learn or new connections I can make on my laptop or smartphone. You can have your majestic landscapes, your intimate looks and conversations, your song, dance, and sports, your warm embraces with family, friends, or lovers. Oh no, give me screens: give me likes and kudos and retweets, give me boundless scrolling of new information and entertainment, give me right swipes, product suggestions, video calls, or any of the delectable fruits one harvests from the fertile fields of the world wide web and I am a happy man.
What’s even more exciting than my personal screen-induced bliss is that the whole world is engaging in this amazing experience with me. Everywhere I look, people are enthralled by their screens, surely learning and connecting as I am. Though it’s not always outwardly apparent, I know these screens are bringing them the same bliss and sense of inner contentment they are for me.
And it’s only going to get better. The possibilities of artificial intelligence and augmented reality will bring all new, amazing ways to engage with screens. AI and AR will unbound the human experience of reality, which henceforth has been limited by our powers of reasoning, feeling, and sensing. Suffering, boredom, and all human problems are about to disappear. Surely some revelation is at hand!
I recently learned that two friends have terminal cancer. News like this underscores the preciousness and precariousness of life. My meditations on mortality bring to mind the Ben Franklin quote, “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.” When my final days come, God willing many years from now, I hope and pray I will have stared at digital screens as much as I could with the time I had.
