In the mornings, when I sit on the porch with my coffee, I watch the world before it fully wakes. The birds navigate from post to post, wings catching the soft light as if they were practicing choreography from a higher rehearsal. I imagine their laughter in bird-speak — gossip about Gary, the feathered fool who embarrassed himself at last night’s “Bird Watch.”
I marvel at how they not only fly but know where they’re going. Then it hits me — magnetism, the original GPS. Nature had built-in navigation long before we turned it into a subscription model.
The squirrels join the morning rush soon after, leaping from limb to limb with effortless grace. There’s a small platoon that passes by daily — the same crew, the same route. I can almost hear them cheering one another on: “Look at you! We’re almost there — ten more minutes!”
And there I am, coffee in hand, watching this unfiltered world unfold — no buffering, no pop-ups, no endless scroll. Just life doing what life does best: being.
Several years ago, I wrote a short line on social media:
“Curb your addiction; Netflix is not a lifestyle.”
At the time, streaming was the new religion. Everyone worshiped the next series drop like it was gospel, and I was no better. I said it partly to be clever, partly as a confession. Because let’s face it — I wasn’t preaching from a mountaintop; I was speaking from the couch.
Even now, I still believe we should spend more time reading, thinking, and being with the people who matter. But the reality is more complicated. These days, screens aren’t just entertainment — they’re the medium of our lives. I’ve written novels, edited photographs, designed worlds, and built entire digital ecosystems from a laptop screen. I’ve written on this blog nearly every day for months straight, and much of it was done on my phone between sips of coffee and the next notification.
So, how do I manage screen time? I don’t always manage it. I negotiate with it.
My desktop is for heavy creative work — the serious stuff: film editing, image manipulation, long fiction. My laptop is for writing in motion. But when I pick up my phone, that small rectangle becomes a world all its own. It’s easy to get lost in that glow — the infinite scroll of headlines, half-truths, dopamine, and distraction.
I once read that researchers call this Small Screen Addiction. I laughed — mostly because I recognized myself in the diagnosis. It’s that quiet pull to check just one more thing, that phantom buzz you swear you felt. The addiction isn’t to the device; it’s to the anticipation of something happening.
That’s the real danger. We’ve become a generation of watchers waiting for something new to arrive on our screens — a message, a miracle, a moment of validation.
These days, I try to make peace with it. I’ve set small rituals: no screens before coffee, no scrolling after midnight, and at least one hour a day where I stare at the ceiling or the sky instead of pixels. It’s not perfect, but it’s balance — or something like it.
And then the day winds down. I return to the porch, this time with tea instead of coffee, preparing for whatever remains of the night. Sometimes I play an audiobook I’ve already heard — something familiar enough to let my mind wander through the spaces between words, where new ideas like to hide.
The glow shifts now — from screens to the eyes of nocturnal creatures beginning their day. They watch me, curious, trying to decide if I mean harm or if I’m one of them. I smell different, but I’ve earned their tolerance through time and quiet. Yes, this is my home — but it was theirs long before me, and it will be theirs long after I’m gone.
It’s funny, the things you learn when you sit, watch, and listen. Their stories begin to braid themselves into yours. Something to be shared — not uploaded or streamed, just lived.
And maybe that’s the best screen management there is.
Author’s Note
We’re surrounded by light — digital, artificial, celestial — and each one demands something of us. Some burn fast and bright, while others whisper in frequencies older than language. The trick, I think, isn’t to turn them off, but to listen long enough to know which ones deserve your attention.
Memoirs of Madness 