A few weeks ago, I picked up two CDs from a record store. 

My 2010 Prius has a CD player, which has housed a disc of boring classical music since even before my grandmother gave me the car and moved to Mexico. I was tired of plugging my phone into the auxiliary port and I didn’t know which radio stations to listen to. Now, every time I turn on my car, The Rolling Stones’ Aftermath” or “Arthur” by The Kinks will automatically start playing. Less to shuffle through, great music, and it feels nice to take something out of its case, slide it into the player and let it go from start to finish as intended. 

You’ve heard countless times that your phone is frying your brain and your attention span is shot. I’m not here to lecture you on the negative effects on the brain; you have experienced them and read enough. I’m here to convince you that there are better hobbies. No, Instagram Reels is not a replacement hobby. 

It is a waste of time to be lost in your phone, you should start taking care of your mind. Once you kick the habit of scrolling endlessly into an abyss of time and tunnel vision, picking up a book or an activity such as knitting or drawing won’t seem as difficult. Our laziness and accessibility to short-form content on our phones are isolating us and causing us to miss out on our lives. 

Delete TikTok. Set time limits that you can’t ignore. The first few days might seem impossible, itching for your phone and the hours of easy-access hilarity. However, you might find that engaging in something slower and just as enjoyable will feel more important and even ritualistic and meaningful. Set up an easel like when you were a child, ask a librarian to recommend a book that will get you out of a reading slump, cook dinner from a recipe book. 

Last summer, a friend and I checked out some DVDs from the library. We wanted to watch a movie that had a ‘main menu.’ You know, scene selection, behind-the-scenes clips, weird animations that play on a 30-second loop. It felt nice. No advertisements, no conglomerate of lists with hundreds of titles to choose from. 

Hobbies could even lead you to the career you’ve always dreamed of. How will you know what you really love (or hate) to do without trying things out?

Knitting, long-form video content, playing an instrument, listening to music and podcasts, drawing, staring at a wall; these things will immediately make you feel happier and healthier because they will slow you down. Nowadays, these options feel like a huge well-kept secret that kids today don’t know about. Sure, there are some very cool artistic creations on these apps. That’s not the point. The majority of content is not constructive and, honestly, cringe-worthy. 

Collaging and making physical visual content, like in painting or scrapbooking, is a great option. 20-year-old artist, poet and community college student Paola Amalié Mosler-Rodriguez likes to make zines, which are small, self-published magazines made for a narrow audience. 

“I started my zine as a way to, like, put illustrations of connections that I see in my own life and solidify it so people can understand what I recognize,” Mosler-Rodriguez said.

She has been working on her zine, “Harmony in Justice,” since February. This is the second zine she has created. She gets inspiration from human connection with nature and ancestral values. 

“I feel this obligation to connect with humans around me,” Mosler-Rodriguez said. “I love human beings.”

She agrees that immersing yourself in a physical (especially artistic) activity is much more valuable than spending time online. 

“I feel very desensitized when I’m looking on Instagram and stuff like that,” Mosler-Rodriguez said. “So, that’s why I like physical things because I made it with care and it’s like, when you have it you’re like, ‘oh, I’m actually gonna respect this and I’m gonna handle it,’ it’s sacred in a sense … I think about a culture of comfort … we’re so used to having access to pleasurable things 24/7.”

She mentioned a pre-industrialized America, where it was so much easier to feel connected with our ancestors because we were making art in the same ways they did. When we are able to go to school and learn what people did before social media and constant accessibility to the internet, we learn about ourselves.

“Even just education in general; that is how we’re in touch with history,” Moslo-Rodriguez said. “And how we can learn to stand for something or how to not be just someone floating in the wind.”

Think of how magazines and newspapers used to be mapped out. It wasn’t on the computer, it was collaged and laid out aesthetically with your hands, gathered around a desk with coworkers and trying different things. Cutting with scissors, coloring, developing and using photographs, it was all real. No pixels. No staring at a screen. Though, I wasn’t even around, so how would I know? 

I had TikTok and deleted it a couple of times, sometimes for long periods of time (the longest was eight months). As I regressed back to my old “brain-rotting” ways, I noticed a laziness that was palpable. According to a 2024 review of various studies investigating the mental health impact TikTok use has, there are several possible direct connections between the two “such as anxiety disorders, depression, and increased procrastination,” said the authors from the Journal of Primary Care and Community Health. 

For me, it was too easy to lie on the couch and scroll. Even just sitting outside and looking at the trees, noticing the birds, I felt almost sad. What was real? That being said, I understand the cycle. I’ve lived it, been stuck in it. If you feel fine, ignore me. I don’t think I’m better than you.

On the other hand, digital media has its benefits. There are some incredible works of art online. I find it easy to read people’s work on things like Medium and Substack, quicker to access short films and videos on YouTube, and to see photographs or collages on Pinterest. So, there are ways to pick and choose what kind of digital media we consume. So-called “doom scrolling” is not a healthy choice.