Don't scroll your life away

the war for our attention

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If the major social media companies started charging tomorrow, how much would you be willing to pay for the “privilege”?

If TikTok told you they were going to start charging 50 bucks a month, would you still use it?

Most people would say no.

And yet we’re already paying much more than that, and no one seems to mind.

We pay with our time without a second thought, and yet when it comes to money, we don’t hesitate to be stingy.

It reminds me of a quote from Seneca in the book “On The Shortness of Life”.

“People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time, they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.”

We allow all kinds of things to steal our time — pointless arguments and conversation, mindless scrolling, outrage-bait news stations — and we don’t even think twice.

But if we discovered someone or something was stealing our money at the same frequency, we’d be pissed, and quickly find a way to resolve the issue.

Yet the average person spends 2 hours a day on social media.

And if you just multiply that by 365, you’ll spend A MONTH of your life on social media this year.

Considering most of us spend more than 2 hours a day on our phones, this should definitely give us reason to reflect.

And you’ve probably noticed I write about this topic often…

But I write about social media and screen time so often because it’s a constant struggle for me, and maybe for you too.

It’s a struggle between wanting to do my deepest work… and wanting to watch just one more YouTube video.

Between writing my book, or just doing a bit more research.

Between wanting to connect with my family after a long day, or sitting down in front of the TV for some low effort “quality time”.

There is a war for our attention, and these posts are a constant reminder to stay vigilant.

Because this is a war most of us don’t know we’re fighting.

And we won’t see how much it has taken from us until it’s too late.

So keep fighting for your attention. Keep improving. And realize that no matter how alluring the glowing glass seems, it can never compare to the things we can do here, in the real world.

— Josh