Seemingly every day, I hear someone say they’re overwhelmed, or feeling overwhelmed, or that someone they know is overwhelmed, or that a certain segment of the population is overwhelmed.
And yes, I’m quite sure that some people are legitimately overwhelmed for good and valid reasons.
Many people, perhaps.
But I also know this:
The average American watches 2 hours and 36 minutes of television per day — roughly 18 hours per week.
The average American also spends 2 hours and 16 minutes per day on social media — nearly 16 hours per week.
These do not seem like the statistics of an overwhelmed population.
And these are the averages for Americans, meaning at least half of Americans are exceeding those already outrageously large numbers.
If you are spending five hours per day — nearly a third of all waking hours — staring at screens large and small, perhaps you’re overwhelmed because you’ve committed a significant portion of your life to the mindless consumption of video content instead of the things that might make you feel less overwhelmed:
Human interaction. Nature. Music. Exercise. Sex. Reading. Hobbies. Volunteering. Learning. Medication. Building a side hustle. Creating your own content.
Perhaps less time on a screen and more time engaged in life would make you feel better.
Or perhaps this excessive screen time is exactly why so many people are overwhelmed:
When you commit a significant portion of your day to staring at glass, you probably don’t have enough time to do the things that matter and might alleviate that overwhelmed feeling.
Also, social media is almost certainly making you feel bad.
Or empty.
Or jealous.
Or angry.
Or disconnected.
I know it might sound crazy if you’re committing three hours of your day to social media, as more than half of Americans are, but I suspect the bad-to-good ratio for social media use is probably about a billion to one.
Social media is the lotus flower in The Odyssey:
Delicious, addictive, and ultimately life-destroying. You invest enormous amounts of time into something that feels good in the moment but is ultimately meaningless, irrational, and supremely forgettable.
Maybe the problem for many isn’t that life is too difficult ot too full.
Perhaps people are feeling overwhelmed because their lives are too full of the bad stuff and too empty of the good stuff.
Or maybe they are spending more time staring at screens — Five damn hours per day! — and less time solving their problems, building their future, and ensuring that tomorrow is better than today.
Just a thought.
