When I returned back to Boston this semester, I started to notice that no one in the crammed Walker elevators on the way to class cared to start a conversation. Almost everyone had headphones in, and if they didn’t, they were texting someone or scrolling through Instagram. If you walk through downtown Boston, no one is looking at you — everyone is trapped in whatever online world they’ve created on their phones. 

So how, in this stupid age of likes and shares and algorithms, do I even begin to unplug myself? 

We’re three weeks into the new year, and my resolutions are already buried in my notes app under half-finished grocery lists and five different to-do lists. 2026 has already lost its pizzazz, as I’ve settled back into the same orgs and major I have kept at for three years now. 

The only thing differentiating this month from the last is the snow on the ground and the impending doom of my graduation at the end of this semester. 

I wanted to have my life more together at this point, but every time I try to make a change, I get sucked into the same shows I’ve been watching and the same apps I’ve been doomscrolling since high school. 

While this isn’t an inherently negative thing, it makes me feel complacent. Stuck. Downright bad and thoroughly bored. There’s only so many times you can watch “How I Met Your Mother” before you realize you don’t want to be like Ted, stuck in his inarguably immature ways, doing the same thing every day. 

So I ventured back to my hometown in Louisiana over winter break via a plane ride and three hours in the car with my dad. I’ve been in a lot of cars with him for way too many hours, and I can never connect my phone to his sound system, so we’re always forced to listen to whatever he has downloaded on iTunes. As a college student, I spend more time listening to music on Spotify than not, with the power at my fingertips to call up whatever artists I’ve become obsessed with for the month. 

Scrolling through his music is one of the highlights of my rare trips home. It always feels like a treat to listen to the “Guardians of the Galaxy” soundtrack or the Eagles’ live albums. I’ve become so reliant on my Spotify daylists that I never choose what music I listen to anymore. 

As we drove through East Texas on our journey back to Shreveport, I made it my goal this year to change that. 

But it wasn’t the music I was listening to — or wasn’t — that frustrated me; it was my screen time. I frequented the coffee shop two blocks from my house when I was home and it felt nothing like Thinking Cup or Caffè Nero. As I waited in line for my appropriately priced iced chai, strangers started conversations. They asked me about the book I was holding and we actually talked about it. 

My record player is my prized possession in my dorm room, with its own table for display and an ever-present album waiting to fill my room with music. But as I looked through my collection, I realized that I didn’t own any of my favorite albums. Why would I, when on a whim I can queue up any song I want on my phone, changing the vibe from rap to country to folk music in a second?

One of my first weekends back in Boston, I went to the Raynham Flea Market with my partner. We bought two vinyls with a $10 bill — Ella Fitzgerald’s “The George and Ira Gershwin Songbook” and The 5th Dimension’s “Portrait” — and listened to them that afternoon. Though I didn’t know most of the lyrics, it was nice to just listen and enjoy new music. 

My screen time started going down as I made a more purposeful effort to stop using Spotify, yet I didn’t stop there. I started using a physical planner instead of my notes app; I got a watercolor set and tried my hand, unsuccessfully; I bought a puzzle. I’ve always loved buying physical books, but often opted for an e-book instead of reading the unread books on my shelf. I picked one up and actually read it. 

I turned off notifications for all of my social media accounts; I muted texts for most people; I even set arbitrary screen time limits that I have been sticking to. 

And you know what I realized? Life moves slower when I am not constantly on my phone. I can see the world a little clearer when I’m not always looking at a screen. I can breathe a little easier when I feel more connected to the world around me. 

And I notice the books people are reading. I haven’t asked people about them yet, but I do look for them in bookstores.