It Won’t Be Deleted
I’m in my favorite city in the whole world and I can’t seem to get off the couch. I wish I had a journal. Something about typing feels insincere. It’s similar to how I won’t go outside for photography unless I bring a camera other than my phone. I wish I could charge my camera. I forgot the charger about 4,000 miles away. My mom and I come back to each Airbnb mid day or at an awkward time in the late afternoon and “recharge”. As if an hour on tik tok is what’s filling our batteries. It makes me sick honestly. I’m barely ever even consuming something important. I can feel my brain fogging up and have for a while noticed the negative effects it has. For days I’ve been using my phone to navigate rural towns and medium cities in central Italy, we made a joke, “Imagine two people and a map trying to do this?”. It’s funny because every few miles or less you’d get the same thing “take the second exit on the roundabout…in one mile, take a sharp left/right turn onto…*insert the longest, most butchered Italian road name you can think of*”. The girl who speaks for Apple’s navigation doesn’t have a very good Italian accent. Imagine two people and a map, going up what's more a path than a road to some medieval town, too scared to speak to anyone at a shop because their Italian is so poor so they resort to taking a picture of the view, have a quick walk around, and drive back down the narrow switchbacks on the mountain they came from.
I feel like I’m on the edge of saying something profound but the words won’t come out. We all know the issue but what’s the fix? Is it profound if it’s common knowledge or understanding? Idk. What's the science behind the regression I feel from rotting away on my phone but the inability to look away from it. I know Rome well enough to maybe step out alone with my camera and a journal (the two things I don’t currently have of course) and find a bench to regain some consciousness but what if something happens to me and I can’t contact anyone, or something happens to anyone and they can’t contact me. I could document how I feel on the app that I’m basically tapped into like an IV but for some reason I can’t find the motivation to do that either. With this fog I feel an ironically prominent sense of dullness. No motivation, no passion. Laziness. Despite me studying in this city for four months and two visits back since, there are things I have yet to see, of course, it’s a big place. Yet I can’t even be bothered to look something up to get there, let alone aimlessly walk. I miss being challenged. I miss school, productive learning.
What would our mornings look like without a phone? Or a whole day? I saw a tik tok of a woman filming her “morning without her phone”. Was she using her phone to film? I often think, what would I be doing right now if not scrolling? How would I be using this time? I never actually get up to figure this out but truly this is something that should be looked more into. I would be reading. Watching a movie maybe, if i was to be consuming media, if not I would organize my room, go do the hobbies I enjoy like take photos or write. I could learn more Italian, go on a walk, but I won’t delete the app because what if a video I post goes viral and then I become an influencer and rich and the end? Is that what I even want? The chances of that are so slim why do I hold onto that as a reason? I won’t delete it because I don’t want to live under a rock. I’m scared of missing out on jokes my friends make or maybe miss some important news that happens because that’s the only place I’ll see it. I went to school for journalism and I don't even keep up with the news!! I’m an embarrassment. Truly. Why do you have to delete it you’re asking? I have no self control. I have already limited my time on it but I say “15 more minutes” about 10 times per day at least. I can’t help myself. Next thing I know, it's been two hours.
Maybe I will delete it, who knows. I’m making a pretty solid case for myself. But then I’ll lose all my drafts. Will I then succumb to reels? WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS MATTER. My god. It’s social media. Where creativity and motivation, for the producer is showcased but for the consumer it dies. Maybe that’s dramatic. As a consumer who has fallen victim, I am biased.
Tomorrow I will buy a journal.
