The Comeback of Doing Things Offline

Think about the last time you were bored. Not waiting-five-minutes-for-the-bus bored. Actually bored. No phone. No music playing. No video in the background. No messages to answer. Nothing immediately available to entertain you.

We’ve become incredibly good at filling empty moments. But there used to be something that came after “I’m bored.” Finding something to do.

• Entertainment and doing something aren’t quite the same

  There is nothing wrong with scrolling, gaming or watching something. Digital life can be social, creative, entertaining and genuinely useful, and research doesn’t support the simplistic idea that technology is automatically bad for young people’s wellbeing.

  But it is very easy. Your phone can entertain you within seconds.

  Compare that with learning guitar, where your reward for the first few days may be producing noises nobody in your family particularly wanted to hear. Or tennis, where the ball seems personally committed to avoiding your racket. Or reading, drawing, cooking, running, photography, chess – almost anything that requires you to actually begin before it becomes enjoyable.

  Offline activities ask a little more from us. And in return, they can give us something scrolling often can’t: something to get better at, make, remember or experience.

  Research into adolescent leisure has linked activities involving sport, friends, family and cultural experiences with better aspects of wellbeing. Other research has found something particularly interesting: teenagers who enjoyed their organised activities reported better mental wellbeing than those who didn’t enjoy them.

  Apparently, having something you genuinely like doing matters.

• There is a word for completely losing track of time

  Have you ever been doing something and suddenly realised an hour disappeared? Not because you were mindlessly scrolling, but because you were completely absorbed in what you were doing.

  Psychologists call this flow.

  It can happen when you’re drawing, playing sport, making music, writing, building something, playing a game or doing another activity where your attention becomes deeply focused on the task.

  The interesting part is the feeling itself. For once, you’re not waiting for the next interesting thing to appear.

  You’re already inside it.

• Offline time can give you something back

  School already takes a lot of our attention. Lessons, homework, deadlines, revision - and then a large part of our free time can disappear into whatever is easiest to open on our phones.

  An offline hobby changes the rhythm.

  You might learn one song on the piano. Get better at tennis. Finish a drawing. Cook something properly for the first time. Read about something that isn’t on your syllabus. Walk somewhere with a friend and actually have time to talk.

  It doesn’t need to become a competition, a qualification or another responsibility.

  Sometimes getting better at something simply because you enjoy it is enough.

  And over time, those hours can leave you with something: a skill, an interest, a memory, new people – or just something you genuinely look forward to doing.

• So, what could you actually do instead?

  You don’t need to completely redesign your free time. Start with one period you would normally fill automatically with your phone and try something different.

  Play a sport, go for a run, read, cook something, pick up an instrument, play a game, go somewhere with friends, try photography, explore a new part of your city or finally learn something you’ve been curious about.

  There are hundreds of possibilities, and that’s really the point. An empty hour doesn’t automatically have to become an hour online.

  It doesn’t have to become your thing. Try something. Keep what you enjoy. Drop what you don’t.

• Your phone isn’t the enemy

  This isn’t a digital detox.

  Phones let us speak to people across countries, discover hobbies, learn almost anything, take photographs, find directions, listen to music and organise our lives. Digital technology can support young people’s wellbeing as well as create challenges; the evidence is much more complicated than simply counting hours on a screen.

  The point is much smaller.

  Don’t let the easiest available form of entertainment become your only one.

  The next time you have an empty hour, resist filling it immediately. Get bored for a minute. Look around. Think of something you haven’t done in a while, or something you’ve never tried at all.

  And then go do it.