Think about the last time you ate food by yourself without watching something or putting your earbuds in. Was it recent? Was it by choice, or did you just not have access to your phone?

Over the years, people’s consumption of content has grown, especially with the introduction of streaming. With unlimited access to content, our dependency on devices has grown from a passing joke to the elephant in the room.

The biggest culprit behind this addiction? Audio.

In 2023, people listened on average to 20.7 hours of music a week. That’s almost three hours per day — an increase of 0.6 hours from findings in 2022. Although the difference seems small, the effects are anything but.

This doesn’t take into account the hours spent scrolling onTikTok, Instagram, and more recently, Threads. A study conducted in Romania found 42 percent of people aged 18-24 had a daily screen time between four and eight hours. Twelve percent of people exceeded 12 hours a day.

If your parents are anything like mine, they love to bring up how much better things were “back in their day.”

Usually, I roll my eyes or laugh it off, but they once mentioned how common it was to make friends naturally on the bus or waiting in line for your food order because you had nothing better to do. After that conversation, I started paying more attention to what people were doing during mundane tasks. What I saw saddened me.

Everyone is always on their phones.

I know, shocker, but really — take a look around you next time you’re on the Cambus. I’ve stepped on some days and found every single person with earbuds in or staring at their phone.

I am no exception; I’ve accidentally bumped into people one too many times trying to pull up my favorite song on Spotify.

I’m not saying we can’t put our headphones on every once in a while, or that we should say ‘hi’ to every stranger we meet, but this constant media usage can’t be healthy.

The National Library of Medicine tracked the average U.S. citizen’s number of social interactions from 2003 to 2019, and the results were sobering.

Social engagements across the board took a nosedive. Interactions with friends went from an average of one hour to less than 20 minutes per day. Time spent with romantic partners dropped from 201 minutes to 175. Family time spent outside the household dropped 19 minutes. It may seem insignificant on paper, but this all added up to 122 hours less than in 2003.

Meanwhile, minutes of social isolation skyrocketed from 285 to 335. To put that into perspective, that’s 304 more hours people spent alone.

Okay, we’re alone more. So what?

Loneliness can lead to higher rates of depression, cognitive deterioration, poor cardiovascular health, and even lower sleep quality. Mental health should always be a priority, but a survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed suicide rates have steadily increased. When comparing 2003 to 2021, almost 300,000 more people died by suicide in 2021.

With numbers like these, we should be doing everything in our power to remain as mentally healthy as possible.

It may sound like things are only going downhill, but there is good news, too. A survey of 2,000 British parents was taken during the COVID-19 pandemic showing 4 out of 5 families felt stronger familial bonds during that time period.

Another article showed that the pandemic brought many families together, increasing their familial resilience and cooperation. Even though the pandemic was a tumultuous time, quarantining provided more time for meaningful interactions with family members.

One way I’ve tried to stay off my phone is setting a widget — a small customizable graphic on a phone’s home screen — that monitors my screen time. I’ve also deleted TikTok — my kryptonite. Small changes like these have reduced the amount of time I spend on my phone and helped me stay more present.

Whether people realize it or not, social interaction is important. Not just for life satisfaction, but overall physical and mental health. Neglecting the relationships we have, just to opt in for exorbitant content consumption, can have real adverse effects on our health.

In a day and age where content is always surrounding us, stay knowledgeable of the good, bad, and ugly effects it can have on you.