The Bean & Seed

As adults, we’re responsible. We do our jobs, pay our bills, and take care of ourselves and our kids if we’ve got them. Surely then, we know when to step away from our devices and don’t need to set limits on screen time for ourselves, right? Well, I don’t think the question is that simple. Assuming the activity isn’t keeping you away from your responsibilities, I would say it’s engagement level during our screen time that we need to be paying attention to when determining when enough is enough. Let me explain.

There are many things in life that can be viewed from a perspective that puts quality against quantity. For me, that’s going to be the deciding factor for determining when I need to step away from a device and do something else; the quality level of my engagement in the activity or content. I don’t want to put a large quantity of time into an activity that provides low quality mental engagement.

I haven’t talked about it on the blog until this moment, but I struggle with somewhat crippling Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD. I plan to get into it further in the future, but, for now, just know that it plays a big role in my decision making and my ability to function. I have an iPad that I keep in the kitchen; I recently decided I want to be able to move this iPad around the house for different purposes. Going into this, I knew that the OCD issues I’m dealing with would require me to clean the iPad each time I take it out of the kitchen, but I decided it was worth the effort. This has resulted in me leaving the iPad at my desk rather than frequently taking it back into the kitchen and restarting the cleaning process over and over again. I say all of this to describe what got me thinking about the quality level of my screen time.

Now that the iPad isn’t in the kitchen, I don’t spend the first hour of my day checking email, checking the news, checking the weather, etc. There’s nothing wrong with these activities, but what I frequently find is that I will keep checking the same sources multiple times throughout the morning as I work in the kitchen and around the house rather than just getting my work done and moving on. This results in me wasting a bunch of time between responsibilities on a device rather than moving into an activity that, in the end, means something to me. Worse yet, I actually find myself frustrated by how much time has passed before I am ready to move onto more important and worthwhile activities. Often times, the more meaningful activities even get bumped from the schedule because of the amount of time being wasted cycling through tired content.

For me, the iPad is my primary way of communicating with people, but when there’s no communication being done and I have nothing specific to research, then I need to step away instead of circling. There are other activities that will offer a higher level of engagement. This is where it gets interesting; the same activity can give both high and low quality engagement.

If you are engaged with what you’re doing and your mind is active, then I’d call this quality time and say it’s probably worthwhile as the activity is benefiting you in some way. On the other hand, if you are distracted and can’t get into what you’re doing, then don’t linger on the activity out of habit. For me, if I am having a particularly hard time with OCD, a video game that requires complex thought and strategy is extremely helpful at occupying my mind and lessening the intensity of any obsessive thoughts I’m experiencing. What I’m suggesting, in this example, is that this can’t be considered as anything less than high quality screen time… it is absolutely therapeutic and gives my mind relief; it’s practically medicinal. In this situation, for me, watching a movie is low quality screen time. If I am struggling with OCD, a movie isn’t interactive enough to pull my mind away from what it is obsessing over. In other circumstances, the same video game becomes low quality if I am thinking of other things and I’d rather be engaged elsewhere. For instance, the movie that wasn’t interactive enough previously. The same movie in another context becomes a social experience that can be shared and discussed with others.

Do we, as adults, need limits on our screen time? I’m going to take a really firm stance here and say, maybe, maybe not… it depends. Know when you’ve had your fill and don’t waste what little free time you have. You probably don’t experience OCD and don’t look at time in the exact same ways as I do. But I think the advice is still sound. Determine the quality level of your engagement in the activity you’re participating in, and this really applies whether it involves a screen or not, and then decide what quantity of time you should commit.

Thanks for reading, Matt

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