I am addicted to my phone

Everything feels urgent, important, sacred. There is no time to decide.

I wake up and touch my phone. It's the easiest thing to do—my alarm is ringing, and I need to turn it off. Before my eyes have a chance to adjust to the sunlight, before I have a chance to process my dreams or the dawning of a new day, the blue light of my phone shocks me awake.

I open an app. Reddit. TikTok. Instagram. The day's most controversial content fills my screen. What happened overnight, since the last time I checked in on the state of the world? Someone threw a fit in a Walgreens. Another bomb, another tragedy. My credit score changed. I made another sale.

I move sluggishly to the bathroom and brush my teeth. The cat rubs against my legs, silently reminding me that it’s time for both of us to eat. As my coffee brews, I keep scrolling. There is a message waiting for me on Instagram. An email begging to be read. Everything feels urgent, important, sacred. There is no time to decide.

I made my first MySpace in middle school. My mom didn't allow it, so I snuck and made one in a friend's computer room. We crowded around the bulky desktop and set up my secret profile, delighting in my rebellion.

Sometimes at night I'd dream of the notifications that were waiting for me. New messages. New bulletins. New photo comments.

Before I knew who I wanted to be, I knew that I wanted to be liked.

I am sitting at my desk trying to write something. It's noon, I'm cramping, and I don't have anything to say. I scroll through TikToks instead. I watch insurance claims adjusters take calls from frustrated customers. I watch a girl budget her $160,000 salary. I have no original thoughts. My mind is blank, numbed by the endless stream of other people's ideas. I fed the cat, but I still haven’t eaten.

"I need to write something," I think. "I need to have something to say."

My ideas come in the form of hooks, ledes, engagement bait. Everything is strategy. Every thought is measurable. The art of my life is reduced to content, fodder for an algorithm that prioritizes other people's attention.

I scroll again, and I'm served a video from a person who does the exact same kind of work I do. She's talking about how much money she makes. It's more money than I make, and I feel defeated.

What does she know that I don't know? What does she have that I don't have? My mind skips over the most obvious variable, the fact that she is making the income claim at all. I instead focus on the natural light in her apartment, the elegant furniture behind her, the differences in the way we look. A shopping list forms in my head.

I close the app in frustration and my thumb moves to the next one, a thoughtless ritual. I read screenshots of other people's texts. Before I know it, another hour has passed. The blank page sits in front of me still.

I want to be a writer who writes. I want to be an artist people witness. Instead, today, I feel like a consumer. I feel like the canvas, the clay—raw material waiting to be shaped by someone else's expression.

"Maybe tomorrow will be different," I think. And maybe it will.

Maybe tomorrow I will wake up the kind of person who doesn't care what other people think, say or do. Maybe tomorrow I will wake up the kind of person who is not addicted to the blue light of fresh notifications, the kind of person who doesn't struggle to stay on task, who doesn't avoid the hard and important things, who always knows what to say and how to say it.

Tomorrow comes and I am human again.

I leave my phone at home when I walk the dog, even though it means my steps will be uncounted. We chase squirrels in the park and I witness but don't record the joy on her graying face. I say good morning to the crossing guard, wave hello to the toddlers walking in a daisy chain.

When I get back, I unlock my phone again. This time, all I see are other people trying. When the screen goes dark I am greeted by my own reflection.

As my hands meet the keyboard, I find something to say.