On Keeping It Real in a Virtual World
What My Tech-Free Childhood Gave Me
Most of our readers are aware of the growing body of research linking our generation’s mental health crisis to screen time. But even if you set the evidence aside for a moment, there is something intuitively disconcerting about the large percentage of our lives we now live through a screen (take a look at the graphic below, made by Dino Ambrosi). Why this unease?
The techno-optimist is quick to say: “you just fear change… embrace progress!”
Your gamer friend shrugs: “I have a lot of fun online.”
And you might soothe yourself and say: “This isn’t worth worrying about -- this is just the way the world is.”
Still… hmm, screens.
I aim not to “yuck anyone’s yum” -- some people love them. But this is why I don’t… and, more importantly, why I’m such a fan of life off-screen.
The good ‘ole days
You may already be scoffing, okay boomer. I know, I know, bear with me.
My parents got rid of the TV when I was five because I’d get so sucked into a show that I’d throw tantrums when they turned it off. It turned out to be a pivotal parenting decision that set me up for a childhood that I still dream about.
Without a TV, my siblings and our friends had to learn how to have fun and entertain ourselves. The most convenient and natural option was each other. We played outside, laughed, fought, made up, and grew closer.
This was also when I learned to love learning. Mastering new skills and grasping new ideas was difficult and thus rewarding, but learning about people - my teachers and my peers - made learning truly fun and fulfilling.
My pre-digital life in elementary and middle school felt social, physical, and focused. I was in my body and present with the people right in front of me.
I didn’t fully appreciate what I had until I lost it.
Digitalization
Things didn’t change all at once. The transition was slow – a subtle erosion of the pure embodiment I’d enjoyed through my early days. I was aware of the shift, in a fuzzy sort of way. Most people seemed blind to it. It was as Charlie Munger once put it (describing addiction broadly), “the chains of habit were too light to be felt until they were too strong to be broken”.
Though the creeping digitalization infiltrated my world quietly, several flashes stand out in my memory:
1) getting my first Facebook account,
2) all my classmates receiving smartphones right around the same time, and
3) finally getting my own smartphone.
Facebook strikes:
In early middle school we still didn’t have smartphones, so school felt mostly the same. But at home, I had a newfound interest in this thing online my school friends kept referencing, called “Facebook”. There were virtual things happening all the time on Facebook, and some of these virtual events even seemed to influence real life. How many Facebook “friends” someone had started factoring into the social hierarchy. Who you decided to post photos with became an oddly important friendship-making strategy.
It felt time consuming, shallow, and weirdly self-absorbed. Do I really have to do this whole Facebook thing to be a “cool guy” at school?, I wondered.
iPhones all around me:
In 8th grade I still didn’t have a smartphone. I didn’t even have a flip phone yet – I took the bus to and from school and carpooled to soccer, so I didn’t really need one. Many of my friends didn’t have smartphones yet either.
On the first day of high school, that changed. I was the only one without an iPhone. Woah.
The school had also gone “tech-forward” (iPads everywhere!), which was the educational fad at the time (This approach, by the way, has now often been shown to be mixed, at best, for engagement and learning, and can easily become a distraction when poorly implemented). I have fond memories of watching FailArmy in class with friends and crying laughing; I’m sure my learning suffered.
My most vivid, and disturbing memory from that first week was lunch. I was always fired up for lunch – best part of the day. Would we play basketball? Ping pong? Where do the high schoolers post up? I ended up at a round table on some synthetic turf, looking around at 6 new friends engrossed in their new phones and mumbling to each other about Snapchat filters. Why isn’t anyone looking at each other? I was quite confused by this new dynamic.
The social fabric I thought I understood from my childhood seemed to be unraveling in front of me. Should I cling to what I knew, or hurry up and immerse myself in this new (virtual) reality?
I held out. I got to know friends through sports and class. I stopped checking Facebook and asked friends to text me party invites. I didn’t embrace the phone life, but my friends did, and the old social fabric did indeed unravel, replaced by something new… something no one really understood.
My first smartphone:
Getting a smartphone during my first year at Stanford was wild. A vast virtual world was now accessible at any moment, in any place. Time started to move at lightning speed, and the days started to blur.
I got accustomed to sending “sorry for just getting back to you” texts. Should I “heart” or “like” this text? I was learning a new language in a new world – a world without touch or smell or taste, a world with a screen in between me and everyone else.
The bombardment of variable rewards quickly hooked me: notifications, likes, the endless scroll. I despised the feeling of powerlessness as this small device sank its teeth into my mind, fiercely and unrelenting tugging at my attention, my habits, and my sense of agency.
Rebellion
My relationship with technology now sits somewhere between functional and troubling. I’ve learned enough “hacks” to keep myself out of the worst addictive spirals, but managing my phone is a constant, low‑grade battle.
Sleep with your phone in another room ✅
Respond to emails and text messages in batches ✅
Turn off non-essential notifications ✅
Constantly and actively resisting the pocket-sized slot machine at my fingertips tires me.
Seeing friends and family squander precious time with one another looking at their devices saddens me.
And it pains me to watch our society eagerly capitalize on technologies that let us outsource anything and everything that takes an ounce of effort or concentration-- even the most wonderful and meaningful facets of the human experience like creating music, reading, and romance.
I find it illuminating that, without fail, the most energizing periods of my post-high-school life have involved extended periods of disconnection from the virtual world and reconnection with the physical world. Stints on construction crews, working at summer camps, and backpacking in the mountains have allowed my spirit to settle, my dreams to become vivid and alive, and the simple feeling of sunshine on my skin to fill my heart with joy.
Time and time again, I’m amazed by the richness and depth of life that flows back into me. It’s like magic.
Conclusion
If you’re like me, you get an uneasy feeling when you see Ambrosi’s screentime graphic because you know how real the real world can be, and you love the realness. We know the real world can be gentle, harsh, hateful and loving, invigorating, boring, and everything in between. And that living in it and embracing it with others, instead of watching it on a screen, is a whole lot more fun.
Different strokes for different folks, of course. But as for me, I’ll be keepin’ it real! ✌️
Founded in 2025, Reconnect Stanford is a Stanford student-led movement & non-profit dedicated to helping people step away from addictive platforms and toward meaningful connection, time, and attention. We build community around social media sobriety through stories, support for students who delete, peer-to-peer mentorship with middle and high schoolers, and events where peers disconnect together.
To learn more and support our cause, visit reconnectstanford.org. To submit a guest piece, email reconnectstanford@gmail.com
About the author: Jamie Holmstrom is a founding member of Reconnect Stanford and serves as the Head of Outreach & Partnerships. Raised in Redwood City, California, he is a second-year master’s student at Stanford University studying management science & engineering. He has not used social media since middle school.
 | A guest post by
|