Hobbies vs. Your Phone: Mortal Enemies?

What do you do for fun?

(Yes, you.) It’s not a loaded question, but it can feel like one.

These days when most of us have a little free time we’re apt to do stuff like: talk to friends, go for a walk (or run or bike ride), prepare some kind of food, or shop.

Most often, though, we… grab our phones. We watch, scroll, text, and swipe. It’s just what we do when we have a few minutes to spare. We Instagram or YouTube or Netflix or news-watch or text.

And there’s nothing wrong with that! Nothing at all.

The challenge only comes, of course, when it gets to be Too Much. When minutes turn to hours turn to chunks of the day. This happens a lot, to the majority of us. In good part, it’s not even primarily our fault.

Enter the concept of “high quality leisure.” It’s pretty fascinating, actually. It’s like a hobby, but with a bit more structure. I encountered the term in Cal Newport’s excellent book, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. He says:

“It became clear to me that low-quality digital distractions play a more important role in people’s lives than they imagine. In recent years…, more and more people are failing to cultivate the high-quality leisure lives that Aristotle identifies as crucial for human happiness. This leaves a void that would be near unbearable if confronted, but that can be ignored with the help of digital noise. It's now easy to fill the gaps between working and caring for your family and sleep by pulling out a smart phone or tablet and numbing yourself with mindless swiping and tapping.”

The solution to the void? The recognition that, in Newport’s words,“a life well lived requires activities that serve no other purpose than the satisfaction that the activity itself generate,” and the undertaking of “pursuits that provide you with a ‘source of inward joy’” (Aristotle again.) He’s talking about roll-your-sleeves up, physical tasks that engage our whole person and provide a sense of satisfaction once accomplished. Newport says high-quality leisure means “prioritizing demanding activity over passive consumption,” “using skills to produce valuable things in the physical world,” and/or “seeking activities that require real-world, structured social interactions.”

I agree that many of us rarely engage in these types of activities with priority and intention. I know I don’t. When I think about Newport’s parameters, the things I sometimes do that fit within them are: practicing guitar, knitting projects, writing poetry, and working to improve my baking skills (e.g., learning to make my frosted sugar cookies beautiful). When I think about it, I get what Newport is saying: these things bring me a sense fulfillment in expending efforts to improve, and in seeing my progress as I go. And he’s right that digital distraction provides nothing similar.

Newport goes further still and says that many who attempt to use their devices less fail because they have no high-quality leisure activities to prioritize with the time they accrue once their hands are free.

What do you think?

Do your phone/screen habits coincide with a life that includes only rare instances of “high-quality leisure”? Do Newport’s ideas make you want to go about hobbies differently? I’d love to hear.

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