Dear Autoplay,

You’re deceiving. Something disguised as thoughtfulness, something there to save me the trouble of getting to the next episode. But in reality, you’re truly despicable, something that keeps me trapped for too many days. You’re like an addiction, swallowing up my small amount of free time, which is why I pressed pause on you. For five days straight.

Yes, that’s correct. This past week I had the opportunity to take a digital detox, starting from Monday morning into Friday night. But what is a digital detox exactly?

“This is a period of time during which you intentionally reduce the amount of time you spend online on your devices. You may even opt to disconnect completely.” — Shishira Sreenivas, “Digital Detox: What to Know” (WebMD).

For many people, especially Generation Z, this felt like a nightmare due to the mere fact that our entire lives are built around technology and social media. Luckily, I’m not a huge social media person, however, the idea of giving up YouTube and Netflix alone made me fearful.

What will I do in my free time? What can I do? I have nothing to do.

These were the three thoughts that crossed my mind as I approached the beginning of the experiment. Fortunately for me, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were extremely busy days, meaning that I didn’t have time at all for a quick episode. Unfortunately for me, I was soon filled with dread as I questioned what was left for me to do on a completely free day.

I believe that skipping the few hours I spend watching movie summaries on YouTube Shorts prepared me for the end of the week. While initially beginning this experiment, it was extremely difficult to ignore the urge to open YouTube, so much so that I decided to use Apple’s Screen Time app. The big time limit message definitely helped as I started to realize that nothing changes whether I watch the Shorts or not. In fact, I realized that it was actually better not to watch them, because then I could spend my time staying productive and finishing other important tasks.

As a result, I became extremely productive and, as a result, became less stressed overall by impending tasks or deadlines that I needed to meet. This appears to be completely on par with how a significant amount of Generation Z feel, as shown by a study mentioning that “(48%) of Gen Z respondents agreeing that they often feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of time they spend engaging with screens” (Mike O’Connor). These statistics made me question many things regarding social media and entertainment content while following the five-day detox. One of the main questions being: Is this feeling of being overwhelmed caused by the overconsumption of short-form media? Or is it the lack of person-to-person social interaction that we are unable to gain while constantly using technology?

Whatever the reason is, I believe that it needs to slow down in order for us, as a society, to have more enjoyment within our lives. Whether that’s through finding new hobbies, or enjoying a scenic walk through nature.

So no, Autoplay, I will not say you’re completely bad, as you have gotten me through the rough times, also known as my boredom. But I believe you have also prevented me from doing much more than I thought I was capable of. So, hopefully, I will continue to press pause on you and remind myself that entertainment can wait, but my sanity cannot.

Sincerely,
Someone pressing stop, not play.