My Silent Screen    

Eminent rabbis have spoken out strongly against unfiltered smartphones. I have listened carefully and I have agreed, but I have never heeded their warnings. This is because the first time I saw this device, perhaps 20 years ago, I said to myself: I never, ever want to own such a thing. And I never have.

I saw people mesmerized by their phones, taking a minute scrolling up and down and inputting this and that, just to come up with a piece of information that, often as not, turned out not to be needed. I said to myself as I watched all this finger-pushing on a screen: Minute by minute, if I owned such a device, there would go my life. My time for Torah study, already limited by professional, family and community obligations, would drastically drop.

I soon saw that it wasn’t minute by minute — it was ten minutes and 20 minutes and an hour at a time. Even when no bullying and no inappropriate material popped up on the phone, the device was addictive, to a greater or smaller degree. It has become common to see people not seeing each other anymore because they are looking at their phones. I see people, a split-second after Shacharis is finished, bent over their phones. I wonder: What am I missing so early in the morning? I wonder: If I find out some major development around the world an hour later, what have I lost?

I learned that some people cannot consider Shabbos observance because they can’t possibly conceive of 25 straight screenless hours. If that is not an addiction, what is?