"I deleted TikTok," Emma announced, not looking up from her book. "Third time this year. Lasted forty-eight hours before I reinstalled it."

"What made you reinstall?" Sarah asked, still scrolling.

"Boredom. Waiting for the dentist. My brain needed something to do that wasn't thinking about drilling."

Tom, stretched out on the porch swing with his Kindle, laughed. "So you solved anxiety with algorithmic dopamine?"

"Exactly. And it worked." Emma turned a page. "Which is the problem, I guess."

This is the digital wellness paradox—we know our screen habits are bad for us, but they solve immediate problems. Boredom, loneliness, the awful silence of our own thoughts. —  Jordan Hayes

"I think digital wellness is mostly just rebranded elitism," Sarah said, finally looking up. "Like, who has time to do a phone-free morning routine? People with no kids, no urgent work emails, no elderly parents who might need them. The rest of us are just trying to survive."

"Fair point," I admitted. "But also, I watched you check your phone six times in the last fifteen minutes. None of it looked urgent."

Sarah glanced at her screen, defensive. "I'm keeping up with people. That's connection, not addiction."

"Is it though?" Emma asked, gentle but pointed. "Like, you're sitting here with us, actual humans on an actual porch, but you're more engaged with whatever's happening on Instagram."

"That's not fair," Sarah protested. "I can do both."

"Can you?" Tom asked. "Because I've noticed when someone's on their phone, they're only half here. Body present, mind elsewhere."

Silence. Sarah put her phone facedown. I felt attacked despite not being the target.

Here's what nobody wants to admit: being fully present is hard. Harder than scrolling. Harder than pretending we're multitasking when we're really just avoiding depth. —  Jordan Hayes

"So what's the solution?" I asked. "Delete everything? Move to the woods? Become insufferable people who talk about how they 'don't even own a TV'?"

Everyone laughed, tension breaking.

"I don't think there is a solution," Tom said. "I think it's just ongoing negotiation. Some days I'm great—phone stays in my pocket, I read, I'm present. Other days I scroll for three hours and feel terrible but do it anyway."

"That's what makes me think digital wellness is a trend," Sarah said. "Like, it's a category now. Apps for mindfulness. Productivity systems. Screen time trackers. But it's all just... more digital stuff to manage our digital stuff. Recursive nonsense."

"Or," Emma countered, "it's people trying to solve a genuine problem. We're the first generation raised on smartphones. Nobody taught us how to use them without letting them use us. So we're figuring it out badly, but at least we're trying."

"Are we though?" I asked. "Or are we performing trying? Like, I have a grayscale phone mode that's supposed to reduce dopamine hits. I turned it on for aesthetic photos of my 'minimal phone setup.' The irony is not lost on me."

Tom nearly choked on his coffee. "That's perfect. That's exactly the problem."

"The problem," Emma said, closing her book now, fully engaged, "is that we've gamified everything. Including solving the gamification problem. There's no escape route that isn't also part of the game."

Maybe digital wellness isn't about perfect solutions. Maybe it's just about noticing—when you're scrolling to avoid something, when you're reaching for your phone out of reflex, when you're here but not really here. —  Jordan Hayes

"I've been trying something," Sarah said quietly. "When I'm with people, I put my phone in my bag. Not facedown on the table—actually away. It's uncomfortable. My brain keeps reaching for it. But I'm trying."

"How's it going?" Emma asked.

"Mixed. Sometimes I'm more present. Sometimes I'm just anxious about what I'm missing. But maybe that's the point—feeling the discomfort instead of medicating it with scroll."

We sat with that. A breeze moved through the trees, rustling leaves. A dog barked somewhere down the street. Tom's porch swing creaked rhythmically. Real-world sounds, analog sounds, the kind you miss when you're wearing AirPods and curating a soundtrack for your life.

"I don't think digital wellness is a trend," Tom said finally. "I think it's a permanent negotiation. Like nutrition or exercise or sleep—things humans have always had to manage, but now the variables are different. We're not evolved for infinite scroll. So we're adapting, badly, in real time."

"And the people selling courses on how to adapt are making bank," I added.

"Well, yeah. That's also true." Tom shrugged. "Doesn't mean the problem isn't real."

By noon, we'd solved nothing. Sarah checked her phone—habit, reflex, relief. Emma went back to her book. Tom scrolled news on his Kindle, which he insisted was "different" because it was long-form reading, though we all knew that was partly self-justification.

I left my phone facedown for another twenty minutes, then gave in. Checked messages, scrolled briefly, felt the familiar hit of information-reward-anxiety. Put it away again. Repeat.

This is digital wellness in practice—not perfection, just awareness. Trying, failing, trying again. Being present until we're not, then choosing to come back. —  Jordan Hayes

Walking home, I thought about Sarah's bag trick. About Emma's deleted-then-reinstalled TikTok. About Tom's Kindle justifications and my grayscale aesthetic. None of us had it figured out. Maybe nobody does.

But we were talking about it. Noticing our patterns. Trying, imperfectly, to be more here than elsewhere. That's not a trend—that's just being human in a time when being human requires more intentionality than it used to.

Is digital wellness real? Yeah, probably. Is it hard? Absolutely. Will we keep failing at it while pretending we've got it under control? Definitely.

But maybe that's okay. Maybe the struggle is the point.

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