The Fight for Every Eyeball

I get home from work. Say hi to the kids — they’re watching a show or playing a Nintendo game together. They’ve already eaten, so I head to the kitchen to heat my food.

Then, on autopilot, I do what I’ve done for months. Plug into my iPad. An interview with a book author. A deep review of a watch. Then a series.

All while my kids sit in another room, watching something else.

Everyone under one roof. Each of us is plugged into a screen.

Last year I did a 30-day digital detox. I’m glad I did — it stuck. I still touch social media now and then, but barely. In and out. Yet as I freed myself from one service, another crawled in to take its place.

Most people, when they talk about a digital detox, mean the social apps. Instagram. TikTok. But what about YouTube? Netflix? The endless stream of programming waiting on every device you own?

Television has been doing this for decades. These devices are no different — on your TV or in your hand. Programming is programming. All of it built to take your attention.

Unlike the old television, though, streaming is a Chinese menu. An endless plethora at your fingertips, and it needs you watching to survive.

The original promise was that you’d cut out the advertising and go straight to your show. Funny how that turned out. Want to skip the commercials? Pay a premium. Don’t want to pay? Sit through most of them. Either way, they live on your attention.

And it’s insidious. First we allow it for ourselves. Then we hand it to our children too.

That’s the observation that hit me, standing at that kitchen counter. Me on the iPad. My kids on a screen in the other room. This is what most modern American households look like.

You can see it in restaurants. The whole family scattered across their devices. The kids handed screens so the adults can talk.

How the fuck did we go from eating at the table together — no phones, no distractions — to this?

This isn’t a social media detox. It’s a fight for every eyeball. Your attention. And it doesn’t stop at the apps — it runs through every screen in the house.

So what did I do?

I didn’t ban the devices. No cold turkey for the family. But leadership starts at the top, and in a family, you lead by example. So the first thing I changed was me.

Now, when I get home, and the kids have already eaten, I have my dinner with a book. When I’m done, I go join them — whatever they’re doing. If it’s watching something they love, that’s what we do. Family time.

Sometimes I sit right there with them, book in hand. They tell me they just love having me there while I read. Really, it’s reading, then talking, then reading again. A constant back-and-forth.

Is it perfect? No. But I’ll tell you what — at restaurants, at any meal together, the rule holds. No phones. No distractions.

As for me, I made the call: in the fight for attention, books win. Books over screens. Books and my kids.

Like I said — is it perfect? No. But my mind is clearer than it was. And I set a better example for my children.

Who now chooses to read. Because they see me reading.