day 7: the outside noise of media.

I’m  reading an excellent book called Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men, by Dr. Leonard Sax. He says that one of the factors in this epidemic is the effect video game addiction has both on young boys and adult men in our generation. You’d expect a chapter like this to talk mostly about the violence that’s in many popular video games, and it does touch on it. But here’s what Dr. Sax says is the main danger in excessive video game use: the influence for young men to disengage from reality.

Boys who grow up playing hours and hours of video games find themselves in a world where they can “be somebody:” earn respect in an online gaming community, perform missions, work their way up, have relationships with women. But all of it is false. However, once they experience this, the pull to this alternate reality is so great that they stop caring about engaging with their life.

Dr. Sax said more and more colleges are reporting problems with video game addiction on their campuses. Young men aren’t showing up for class or are interested in dating. Married men are getting home from work and retreating straight to video games instead of engaging with their wives and family.

What’s Dr. Sax’s solution? To provide young boys with regular real life experiences that trump anything they could find in a video game. By this he does not mean parents have to shell out money for more trips to Disney World or family cruises or overwhelm boys with purposeless busyness.

I think that he means living a life of purposeful simplicity: taking time to help boys be boys. Spend lots of time outside. Go camping. Learn to rock climb. Learn to fish. Play on a soccer team. Read literature. Take apart a car. The challenge of learning to master any new skill. Give them meaningful relationships with a variety of kids and adults who lead creative, active lives.

His principle is that the more interesting and varied their life is while growing up, the more boys will be able to identify that video games are just fantasy, and while fun in small doses, are nowhere near as rewarding as real, textured, meaningful, challenging life.

My point to all of this is that as I was reading, I felt it strike a chord with me. I know that media: video games, the Internet, smart phones, TV, social media, can have enormous power for both good and bad. I know I need to be wise with media use. But still, I make poor decisions. I spend hours surfing design blogs. I check my phone compulsively. And I wonder: why do I do this?

After reading Dr. Sax’s book, I realized: the reason I do it is that the world of media is just easier. It’s an escape. The images I see on Apartment Therapy are prettier and cleaner than my own house. It’s easier to have a text conversation with a friend than sit and play princess dolls with my daughter. It’s easier to turn on the TV after the kids are in bed than read a book or talk with my husband.

All of this does not mean that media is altogether wrong, just like many video games aren’t altogether wrong; it just means it’s easier than real life. Allowing the noise of media to grow out of proportion hinders a purposefully simple life. And understanding that is helpful.

The way to help media have its proper place in my life, rather than becoming consuming, is exactly what Dr. Sax prescribes: to make my real life more interesting than Instagram. And by that I don’t mean: make my life interesting so I can document it on Instagram; I mean make it more interesting so I forget for a little while about Instagram and Facebook and Pinterest and whatever else. I think that those moments of pleasant forgetfulness are the key to a creative, simple life.

So these days, instead of beating myself up with guilt about social media, I’m just getting up and re-potting porch plants and clearing out our raised beds and planting greens for a fall garden. I learned the basket weave stitch and started crocheting a baby blanket in the evenings before bed. I’m having Saturday afternoon coffee with a friend. I’m starting my own nature drawing notebook as I show the kids how to start theirs. I’m finding little house projects to do without spending money. I’m going jogging.

As I’ve found new things to do these last couple of weeks, I’ve realized that I haven’t picked up my phone or laptop nearly as much. I’ll get to them . . . eventually. Real life is harder, yes, but it’s also way more rewarding.

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My friend Lauren is blogging this month on 31 Days of Made to Pour: Living a Life of Blessing. I always appreciate the depth and thoughtfulness of her posts.