Too Much SCREEN Time?

Blending Actual and Virtual Life

Hi, everyone! Did you miss me? While the weather in Connecticut has been positively Himalayan, we were island-hopping in the Caribbean on a sailing ship, eating fancy food, drinking rum and Aperol Spritzers, and meeting a dog named Speed Bump, another dog tagged DO NOT FEED, and some of the most entitled cats who have ever extracted red snapper from my dinner.

It was a great time. I was thrilled to go, and I am glad to be back. There is one constant. I spend a LOT of time on my phone. SCREEN time, the moralists intone. Too much SCREEN time. That’s bad. Apparently, vacations are supposed to be like colonoscopy prep, only enjoyable, in terms of spending time away from SCREENS.

And yet, on board our ship, we spent time taking pictures to share with In Real Life and online friends, showing travel pictures to fellow passengers, looking up references so we could understand what the botany and evolutionary biology professors were talking about, and reading up on the history of the various islands we visited: St. Maarten, Bequia, Grenada, Dominica, Curacao, and a host of others.

In the course of the trip, we found people we’d sailed with before. We found a woman who’d studied piano with my teacher in Cambridge and who knew my cousin in Pittsburgh. We traded stories.

We made it very clear that we were NOT frantically phoning home like corporate ET to check on business, yet I sold two stories, negotiated for a picture, got two stories rejected, and was solicited for at least two more. I made notes, then had another Aperol Spritzer while watching the sun set.

What’s the point of all of this? The phone, that terrible SCREEN time, actually enhanced the trip because it enabled us to go home relaxed, not dreading strenuous catch-up ball or surprises. It enabled us to share our real and our virtual worlds with fellow passengers and old friends. It helped us remember, and, frankly, it enhanced our experience.

Because we were content, it prevented a great deal of doomscrolling because the tropical islands were far more interesting. We got to sit with people from all over the US and Canada and, while sharing current travels, trade notes on what we’d done, what we were doing, and where we planned to go.

Because the world, as Wordsworth says, is too much with us, our problems accompanied us, mostly religious ones. We were pleased to talk openly and happily with other Jewish passengers. We discussed the Orishas and the Eastern Orthodox Church and its scriptures along with Kashrut and what is and is not halal. We snarled quietly about politics in the academy because our trip was comprised of alumni associations. But far from home, the discussions were curious and amiable.— a way of behaving I hope to maintain at home, though I’ve already been called a genocide online at least once.

Traveling and reporting as we travel become a form of parallel processing. Best of all, when we landed, we didn’t have to frantically tell the whole world that we were back. It was a great time. We had to cancel out of a convention because of exhaustion and laundry and avoiding, in our tired state, the dreaded Con Crud, but we’re settled in again – just as soon as we put away our now-unpacked suitcases.

One thing about writing trip reports as if reporting in real time – you get to take other friends with you while not having to share bathrooms with them. People get to see what you’ve been up to, just as I enjoyed reading about people’s trips to New Zealand, a couple’s first gay cruise, and various trips on land while keeping track of people in good and troublesome situations back home. Years ago, in the science fiction world, trip reports helped people expand their horizons. They’re now regarded not as brags, even humblebrags (ugh), but as a perk of the community. Be a good neighbor. Report what you did on vacation.

Click those ruby slippers together three times. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. Even if the Patrick O’Brian fans were thrilled that while on one sailing ship, we got to lay alongside a second. The food was delicious, ample, and what my Ohio roots refer to as “fancy.” The day after we got back, we went to a local diner for cheeseburgers, caught up on paperwork, and just plain flaked out as Part II of winter vacation. And we are thankful.

Sam Gamgee has the right of it. “Well,” he said. “I’m back.”