Second-Hand Screen Time: How Your Screen Time Affects Others
Myrth founder and CEO Emma McLaren is popping in today to share her experiences with second-hand screen time - the idea that exposure to other people’s screens can affect the rest of us, too, even when we’re not using our own devices.
Oh gosh. It happened again. I was sitting quietly - this time on a plane - trying to keep my screen time down. I hadn’t done so well today.
I monitor the amount of time I spend on my phone (yes, I’m one of those people). Ever since becoming aware of how much time and energy my device sucks up, I now pay close attention. Every day, I check my Screentime app and assess how I did. I was up super early for my flight and found myself scrolling mindlessly, so today’s numbers are quite high.
Did you know that the average person spends between 3 and 4 hours of time on their phone, not to mention in front of other screens? We all do it. Even those of us who are aware and extra careful (like me!) still get sucked in.
So there I was on the plane headed to CES in Vegas, resting my eyes and my brain and kinda just sitting there - like a crazy person - doing nothing. Side note: Have you read Pico Iyer’s book “The Art of Stillness,” where he talks about how one of the best preventions for jetlag is to sit on the plane doing nothing? It’s fascinating. Okay, I digress.
See, the topic I’ve been wanting to write about for months was now staring me in the face: second-hand screen time. Let me describe a bit, and you’ll relate. Guaranteed.
The guy to my right was playing a video game with flashing characters and great colors. I tried to look away, but the flashiness caught my eye, so I turned to my left. That guy was scrolling through emails - Emma, I told myself, Don’t look. That’s rude. So I didn’t, but the glow under the dim lights of the cabin was mesmerizing. Like a moth to a flame, my eyes couldn’t stay away.
Has this happened to you?
Maybe it wasn’t on a plane. Maybe you were at a concert, and the person in front of you thought that if they didn’t capture every second of this concert it didn’t happen, and so they have their phone out the whole time.
Or maybe you were lying in bed with your partner, and you’ve hit your max screen time for the day but they were still scrolling away.
Or perhaps you were at a dinner table and someone was checking their texts.
Can you say something? Can you ask them to stop? But it seems to be everywhere around you so it’s socially ok. Isn’t it? Maybe it’s the cultural norm and we few are the anomaly for wanting it to go away.
This is what I call second-hand screen time: when you are “affected” by the screens of those around you.
And then, on top of the visual distraction, second-hand screen time also presents itself through sound. The Pavlov’s dog reaction to the pings or pongs or beeps from the phone of someone around you. It’s happened to you, right? There’s a ping of a cellphone - you were pretty sure you turned off the sound on your phone but you better check just in case. It wasn’t you, but look, there’s a notification, and you should probably check that, and oh, a text from someone, and suddenly it’s three hours later and you’re asking yourself, “what was I doing”?
(Fun fact: When cell phones first came out, there was a serious concern that the ringing was going to be a major issue until silent mode and vibration were invented. Maybe those concerns weren’t so far-fetched after all.)
Second-hand screen time or second-hand phone may sound familiar. For those of us old enough, we will remember when people around us smoked. And boy, did they smoke everywhere.
I was lucky enough to be born in the 80s, so I was generally at the tail end of the culturally accepted norm that was smoking, but I will tell you that sitting on this plane surrounded by second-hand screen time reminds me of the cross-Atlantic flight my sister and I took in the late 80s to go see my Grannie. We traveled UM, or “Um Mum” as we liked to call it (UM is short for “unaccompanied minor,” which is how the airlines described the two of us).
My parents were thoughtful and chose seats in the nonsmoking section of the plane (yes, that’s right youngsters, digest that one for a moment). However, it turned out the smoking section was one row back. I mean, come on! That was someone’s idea of a socially acceptable solution. This was deemed ok. My sister and I were exposed to all kinds of second-hand smoke, almost as if it didn’t matter that we were technically in a nonsmoking row. Luckily, smoking flights are mostly a thing of the past, and for some, a thing of legends.
But it raises a serious issue: we thought, as a society, that smoking was ok and that second-hand smoke was inert.
It was the same in clubs and restaurants and cinemas and cars and buses and parks and homes (omg homes!). Until one day, people started to notice that maybe this was negatively affecting our health. One day, someone turned to the person sitting next to them at the cinema and asked them to “butt out”. Shock! Unbelievable! How dare you ask me to put out my cigarette? This cigarette is a god-given right. You aren’t smoking, I’m not asking you to smoke, mind your own damn business.
But slowly, one by one, community by community, person by person, we changed that story. Free, clean air was the right and smokers were seen as impinging on that right. Regulators and legislators concluded that smokers needed to go elsewhere far away to smoke - or in Quebec, they were put in a fish bowl-like room at the local Timmy Hos. It was slowly but surely becoming unacceptable to just whip out that pack of cigarettes and light one up. People gave you a look or actually said something.
I want to digress here for a moment because you will have maybe heard or read comparisons between smoking and phone use with regards to addiction. And it’s true, I suppose, that there are addictive tendencies in each case. However, I will tell you, having smoked on and off for 20 years - I was a master quitter and quit all the time - that they really can’t be compared. You see, there is nothing intrinsically good about cigarettes and smoking. Nothing good comes from it or goes into it. Smoking is harmful. Period. Even the things people claim to like about smoking, like the opportunity to take a break and chat with friends, can be done with something else, like tea, that won’t give you cancer.
However, your phone can be awesome. It has your long-distance friends, your mom’s funny texts, your period tracker, your calendar, your Myrth app. It can enhance your life exponentially if used responsibly and reasonably. This is not the case for cigarettes. Some food for thought.
Okay, back to the regularly scheduled programming.
Society changed and laws followed, or maybe laws changed and society followed? Regardless, no one will argue that we haven’t seen a marked difference in our treatment of smoking, second-hand smoke, and tobacco.
So where does that leave us with second-hand screen time? Which will come first - society or laws? And where does that leave me, sitting on the plane, now that I am part of the problem because I wrote this blog on my phone?
I suppose the first big step is being mindful - that is, thoughtful - of your screen use and your phone noises with yourself and those around you. Change comes from ourselves first. But, to change the world, we must also change society and culture.
I was recently at a dinner party. All adults. Great conversation and even more delicious food. Something occurred to me as the dishes were cleared and we were sitting in the post-meal bliss. You see, when I was a smoker, this would have been my cue that it was ok to light up a cigarette. No one was eating (a secret faux pas amongst smokers), and we were just sitting and digesting.
However, I looked around, and slowly but surely everyone started to take out their phones and scroll. I thought about how similar the social norm was. Instead of just sitting there, everyone was taking out their “cigarette” and digesting. I didn’t say anything, but it felt almost surreal.
So here is my challenge to myself and to you: Can I dare you, the next time you are having a dinner party or sitting at a concert and someone whips out their phone and starts smoking away, to say something?
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