Learning to spend time

When everything moved online, it felt like one of the greatest things I valued — human connection — had been taken away. With only my three brothers to spend time with and the  once-a-week pod visit from our closest family friends, I found myself alone in my room for days on end, with nothing but the black hole of the internet to keep me entertained. I remember thinking that as soon as life returned to normal, I would make it a priority to spend as much time as I possibly could with others, to make up for all the time with friends I was missing out on.

Over half a decade later, I do feel that I have tried to honor this promise. Whenever I have a day that isn’t chock full of homework and extracurricular activities, some version of a “hey, are you doing anything today?” text from me is pretty much guaranteed. But when my free time inevitably doesn’t line up with my friends, and I find myself by myself, I notice I tend to slip back into the same pattern I developed during the pandemic — I distract myself from what I feel like I’m missing out on by falling into social media, which only ends up leaving me feeling more useless in the end.

I think that tendency comes from the way I learned to deal with being on my own back then. When there was nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, this sort of distraction became the easiest way to pass the time. Even when I wasn’t truly enjoying what I was doing, hiding behind a screen felt like a pacifier that helped me avoid that feeling of being stuck with nothing else. It  never really felt like a problem, though, because it seemed like everyone else was doing the same thing, turning to whatever would make that kind of time feel a little easier.

But the more I’ve started to notice it, the more I’ve realized how problematic this mindset has  been for me and for others who share it. Not only is it exhausting to feel like you constantly need to find someone or something to do, but it also creates this idea that time is only valuable if it’s filled the “right” way. In reality, all the time we have matters, and learning how to spend it in my own company is something I know I, along with many of my peers, would benefit from working on.

It’s so easy to come up with excuses for why we spend this time by ourselves the way we do. School is draining, and turning to a screen has become second nature for our generation. For many teens who don’t have a car, relying on others to get anywhere can make time on your own feel impossible. But ultimately, this cycle won’t change unless we learn how to be OK with it.  Whether that means going on a hike by myself, sitting in a coffee shop with a book, or even writing something personally reflective like this, I want to push myself and others to actually use this time in a more meaningful way.

And of course, I don’t think the answer is to stop wanting to be around people. That’s still something I value immensely, and something I missed deeply during those years. Neither is spending time on digital media inherently bad, as long as it’s intentional and in moderation. But I do think there’s something worth reconsidering in how we view the alternative.

Maddie Shoop-Gardner is a junior at Carlmont High School in Belmont. Student News appears in the weekend edition. You can email Student News at news@smdailyjournal.com.