The evolution of an author
Here’s a radical idea: Maybe humans are supposed to have boring wait time and aren’t meant to be doing something every single second of the day?
How does one go from writing bestselling, family-friendly books about being a single father to telling tales of bloody murders and serial killers (that also sell like hotcakes)? British journalist and author of the renowned Max Wolfe series shares his story.
THE other day I made a startling discovery. There is a world outside my phone.
I know that sounds ridiculous. But it’s true.
The average person now spends around four to five hours a day staring at their smart phone. That’s roughly 20% of your day, or, put another way, it’s 31% of your waking hours. Now I am definitely the average person, spending at least that amount of time on my phone, and if you take the amount of time I’m staring at my computer screen, I’m probably eating up most of my waking hours staring at digital content.
But part of my life now is owning and walking a dog. Which isn’t so bad, because as I walk my dog, I’m scrolling through Twitter. Crossing the street. Then checking messages, writing texts, and basically experiencing the act of walking the dog as an extension of just sitting on the couch staring at my phone.
What happened the other day was that my phone died. Angry at myself for not planning properly, I left the phone to charge and begrudgingly took the dog out with no way to see what was happening in the Twitterverse. Instead, I was thrust into the normal universe. And it was great.
The sun was out. The sky blue. Leaves on trees blew gently in the breeze, and I looked back to check on my dog who looked up happily and trotted on. But the best thing was I didn’t have the constant stress of trying to stay focused on my phone while walking on a busy street and monitoring my dog at the same time. I hadn’t realised that by wanting to keep connected – by connecting my eyes constantly – on my phone, I was spending a lot of mental energy trying to do three tasks. Now, without my phone, everything was different.
There was no retweeting snarky anti-Trump comments while looking up to make sure I was crossing the street at the right time. No nearly bumping into someone because I was too busy sending an audio message to my girlfriend. No surprise as my dog yanks me to stop to pee while
I’m trying to send a “flat
Earthers are dumb” meme to my buddy on Instagram.
In short, I was causing my dog walks to be more stressful than they had to be.
Without my phone, I was free.
I walked at a leisurely pace, taking in the buildings and surroundings like I’d hadn’t seen them in years – because I hadn’t. My face had been stuck in my stupid phone. And when I passed people stuck on their own phones, who would look up too late and swerve to avoid me or my dog, I felt sorry for them. Still shackled to their 4G overlord, their attention split between the real and the virtual, with no idea how tranquil a simple walk on the street could be ... poor bastards.
The great thing is this freedom made me question other places where I used my phone. Like sitting in taxis or on buses. Waiting in line at the supermarket. Waiting for a friend at a restaurant. All instances of the mundane where I would yank out my phone without even thinking about it. Now I kept my phone in my pocket and watched as we drifted through traffic, observed the other shoppers, studied the servers coming and going from the kitchen. It was like scuba diving for the first time and remarking that it’s a whole other world beneath the sea. Well, it’s a whole other world outside of your phone screen. Maybe it’s time to discover it again.
Now, I don’t want to sound preachy. And I get that smartphones have made us vastly more productive. And that they’ve turned that boring wait time into e-mail time, into pay-the-bills time, but maybe humans are supposed to have boring wait time and aren’t meant to be doing something every single second of the day.
I’m sure the more fiscally minded reading this are going to tell me to go back to southern Europe and have a siesta if that’s really what I want, to which I would respond, sure, don’t mind if I do.
Smartphones are a great innovation, but we undoubtedly spend too much time on them. Next time you’re passing time staring at photos on your favourite social media network, maybe think about passing the time taking in the world around you. I know my dog walks are much, much better for it.
Avid writer Jason Godfrey – who once was told to give the camera a ‘big smile, no teeth’ – has worked internationally for two decades in fashion and continues to work in dramas, documentaries, and lifestyle programming. Write to him at star2@thestar. com.my.