BREAKING: The war on screen time is over

The 1-Person Walkman Experience

In the late 1990s, I begged and pleaded my way into the possession of my very own portable cassette player. I was only a kid at the time and I knew nothing of heartache or longing or desire. But I sat in my room and felt electrified as I slid headphones over my ears and privately bathed in lyrics that were way above my pay grade.

It was my personal, secret sound space. And I reveled in the privilege of my newfound auditory confinement.

But at school, I began to notice boys sitting tightly together in corners of classrooms - huddled over a walkman just like mine. Ear to ear, they shared a single pair of headphones like they were sharing secrets. They listened to Limp Bizkit or Snoop Dogg or some other group that was recently banned from their parents’ cars.

I watched as they nearly broke metal trying to bend and twist their scrawny heads between ear cushions. But it wasn’t the lure of the forbidden that drew them together. It was sharing in the forbidden act that reeled them in so tightly.

Our need for a shared experience is what tethers us together.

But as technology continues to advance, we’re afforded more avenues to situate ourselves in solitude. We can order dinner to our doors, watch full-feature films on our phones, and even make bets while in bed - all without having to look another human in the eye.

I’m convinced that we’re not meant to experience life so separately. Because in a world filled with so many opportunities for isolation, we’re still inventing ways to remain tethered to the collective.

Like the Walkman huddles, we continue to find ways to turn our individualized experiences into something communal.

At the micro level, we accomplish this through the stories and inside jokes that we tell over dinners. It’s in the way we quote obscure movies with our friends. At the macro level, it’s embedded in our culture and our shared identities. It’s in the art that we consume.

The pervasiveness of the shared experience can be found at the heart of every medium.

It’s even baked into memes. The virality of the internet is proof alone of our desire for human connectedness.

Sharing is fucking caring.

It’s why we share our New York Times mini crossword results in group chats (still shooting for sub 60secs, damnit) and why we quote the same shows over and over again. We want to relate.

I used to think we left our homes to “get out and do something”. But we leave our homes to enter the breeding grounds for a shared experience. Escape rooms, movies, dinners, 5k runs, dog parks, festivals. They’re all just a situated context.

The places that we go serve as the jumping points for the stories that we will later come to share.

Long before the temptress that we call “tech” broke ground and began her siren song, man sat around fires together. Not just for sharing warmth, but for the sharing of stories.

These fires still exist - they’ve just evolved a little. Now they exist inside living rooms and restaurants and discords and stadiums and fandoms and group chats. The tether is always going to pull us back together.

We’re not meant to live the 1-Person Walkman Experience.

So I’m here to officially declare an end to the war on screen time.

It’s that simple: It’s over. I’m waving my white flags. I’m begging that everyone stop begging for me to touch grass.

This is your permission to stay unapologetically plugged in. Because I trust that our need for a shared experience will always emerge, regardless of its solitary starting points.

The communal experience is the tie that binds.

And we will always build fires to gather around. 

find your fires.
until next time. -cd