Eyes Wide Open

I used to love small talk. As someone who isn’t great at endless conversations, I relied on small talk questions to fill gaps when I struggled to find something to say. However, lately, I’ve found myself avoiding and even dreading small talk. I’m comfortable with the basics: “I’m from Lunenburg, MA, and I’m a film student at Quinnipiac. It’s near New Haven.” But sooner or later, the inevitable question always comes up:

“What do you do in your free time?”

And then I’m stumped. I might jokingly respond with “sleep” or mention spending time with my dog. Aside from occasionally picking up a book, which I only recently started doing again, I struggle to provide an answer that I’m proud of.

I often reflect on how I spent my time during the COVID lockdown. That year, with no school, no friends, and nothing to do, feels like a blur. I can’t remember doing anything memorable or even just do anything mindfully. 

The issue isn’t exactly that I lack hobbies but that my hobbies seem to act as time fillers rather than genuine sources of enjoyment. As a child, my favorite pastime was working on puzzles. I would spend hours sitting uncomfortably on the floor while organizing the pieces, learning what each of them looks like and where they may go on the canvas. I would become so familiar with each piece that it was all that would take up my mind. Sometimes, the whole afternoon would pass by until it was dark outside, but I wouldn’t notice because my eyes were glued to the floor. 

When I tried to do a puzzle with my family last Christmas after years without doing one, I found myself giving up after only five minutes, choosing to watch a movie instead. My initial excitement quickly faded as the puzzle seemed more challenging than I remembered.

I gave myself the excuse that I had lost interest in puzzles, but that doesn’t make sense. I had been looking forward to the puzzle, only to quit unexpectedly. This experience reminded me of Johann Hari’s thoughts in “Stolen Focus,” where he discusses how transitioning our attention to screens creates a downward spiral for deeper engagement with other activities. While he’s referring to books, I think this also applies to my experience with puzzles. The constant stimulation from the internet has conditioned us to jump between distractions, making it difficult to focus on a single activity that requires sole, deep attention.

So, what hobbies do I have? Does doom-scrolling social media count as one? I don’t want to admit that I’ve let hobbies slip away because they’re now too simple to enjoy. 

I often grieve my old attention span but that does me no good. All we can do now is use our time more wisely as to not surrender our attention, and thus our hobbies, even more into the black hole that we call a phone.