Anywhere you go on campus, you can find people doing all kinds of different things: reading their horoscope in the paper, writing a discussion post seven minutes before it is due and maybe kissing each other. What are people doing most of the time, though, more than any of that other stuff? They are on their phones. Yeah, yeah, nobody wants to read another self-adulating article about how screens are ruining our lives, whatever. Phones suck! I hate nothing more than when I am sitting with a group of people, and nobody is talking because everyone is on their phone. I am not immune or anything. I think I have found a really obvious solution to the phone problem on this campus—doing hobbies for attention.
I had a serious issue with using my phone constantly to escape reality during sophomore fall, the worst semester of a college student’s life. Time on my phone really impacted my social circle for the rest of college, and I regret it a lot. You can get over it! It is possible to stop scrolling around other people, but you need something to fill the gap. Phones are so addictive because of the infinite amount of unexpected dopamine they will hit you with. The more you scroll, the more your brain wants to keep scrolling to find the next good thing. We need to replace this source of dopamine with something new.
I love hobbies! The fastest way to have fun and fulfilling free time is to be a jack of all trades, master of none. There is a constant stream of mediocre watercolor paintings, sloppy crochet projects, wonkily embroidered clothes and very “homemade”-looking holiday decorations coming out of my room. My boyfriend and mother always have good things to say about them, but it gets even better when I leave my Terrace Apartment. Sit down anywhere on campus and start doing something! Every time I have been painting or crocheting in public, someone asks me what I am up to. Maybe a friend walking by, a professor waiting in line for Zorona’s on Tuesday and sometimes a stranger.
Nothing feels better than minding my own business and all of a sudden getting to tell a pair of nice older women that I am making a hat for my new niece and, of course, they can see a picture of the baby and, of course, I can help them find the art museum. It is genuinely like a drug when the friend I am waiting to have lunch with sits down across from me at the Deece and lies, telling me my latest watercolor painting looks so good while gently asking, “What is it, exactly?” No Instagram Reel has ever been as awesome as when the neighbor with perfect style compliments my hat, and I get to tell them I made it (and I have seen some pretty awesome Instagram Reels). It is so exciting! You never know when someone might say something or if you may make a new embroidery buddy. It is much more thrilling than the hope that you will find an even funnier Michelle Yeoh edit.
I think people can be afraid of doing things for attention. Not me! I will unashamedly wait to work on my latest craft projects until I am sitting somewhere on campus. It is great motivation to be off my phone in public. I do not think I have ever talked to as many strangers as when I started keeping craft projects in my backpack. Have you ever darned a sock in public? People have so many things to say about that! We all need attention from each other; that is all that being human is.
I have had a hard time making friends over the past three years, and even though I am much happier today, I still do not have the social life I always imagined I should have in college. I constantly hear other people talking about how they have trouble meeting new people, and every third Fizz post is asking for advice on making friends. I have some of the most wonderful friends today, and I owe at least some of our closeness to the joy of doing our hobbies around each other. One of my dearest friends and I studied abroad together when we were strangers, and we took a 40-minute walk on a very unwalkable road in Galway to find a yarn store. What if I had been too embarrassed to try to knit a sock in front of her? She would not have known I was trying to knit, and we would have never bonded over that horrifically exciting journey.
So, if you are one of those lonely Fizz posters, here is my exceedingly inexpert advice. Host a craft night, try something new, let yourself suck at stuff, let yourself suck in front of your friends, in front of strangers, in front of everybody. You may not make a new friend and you may not cut your screentime; maybe nobody will say anything to you at all. One thing I know for certain is that none of us can get any of the attention we need from staring at our phones all day.