Who Owns Your Time?

Lately, I have been observing something in my own life. I am not saying this happens to everyone, and I am not trying to give advice to anyone. I am simply looking at what is happening around me and, more importantly, what is happening within me. Sometimes I feel that my relationship with time changes completely when I start using social media. I may pick up my phone during a short break, thinking I will watch something for a few minutes, but somehow those few minutes become much longer. One reel becomes another, one story leads to another, and before I realise it, a considerable amount of time has passed.

What makes it even more interesting is how quickly the algorithm seems to understand what catches our attention. We may begin with something we genuinely like—nature, relationships, news, entertainment, politics, travel, or simply something funny. If we spend a little longer watching a particular subject, similar content starts appearing again and again. Then, somewhere in between, something completely different appears. We may not have searched for it, but we watch it for a few seconds. If we continue, more content around that subject begins to arrive. It feels as though the platform is quietly asking us, “Are you interested in this?” And sometimes, without consciously deciding anything, we answer yes simply by continuing to watch.

What I find more fascinating is what happens to the mind during this process. One moment, we are laughing at something, and the next we are watching disturbing news. Then something inspiring appears, followed by someone’s success, someone’s struggle, an argument, a beautiful holiday, a heartbreaking story or something that makes us angry. Our emotions keep moving from one place to another. Happy, sad, curious, excited, worried and angry—all within a very short period. There is hardly any space for the mind to settle. Perhaps we are not simply consuming content; we are constantly reacting to it.

And then comes the part that makes me think even more deeply. Most of us already spend a large part of our day working. We work for companies, clients, customers, businesses and responsibilities. We work because we have goals, commitments and people depending on us. When the workday finally ends and we get a little free time, we often reach for the phone again. We tell ourselves that we are relaxing, but sometimes I wonder whether we are actually resting. We may have stopped working for our employer, but our attention is still being consumed somewhere else. Someone benefits from the time we spend watching. Someone benefits from our attention, our curiosity and the fact that we continue scrolling.

That makes me ask myself an uncomfortable question: after spending most of the day working towards someone else’s goals, why do we sometimes spend our remaining free time watching someone else’s life? We watch their journeys, relationships, achievements, opinions, holidays and dreams. We become deeply interested in what everyone else is doing, while sometimes forgetting to ask what is happening with our own lives.

Maybe the bigger question is not simply how much time we spend on social media, but what we are doing with the time that belongs to us. What are our dreams? Are we working on them? What are we learning? What are we trying to improve? What have we been postponing? Dreams do not always disappear suddenly. Sometimes they simply become quieter. We keep saying, “I’ll do it later.” Then later becomes tomorrow, tomorrow becomes next month, and eventually we become so occupied with everything around us that we forget what we once wanted for ourselves.

I have also noticed how automatic the habit can become. Waiting for something? Phone. Having coffee? Phone. Taking a break? Phone. Before sleeping? Phone. Wake up in the morning? Phone. Sometimes we don’t even consciously decide to open an app. Our hands simply know where to go. That is when I start wondering whether I am using the phone or whether the phone has started using me. I don’t think this requires guilt or fear. Perhaps it simply requires awareness.

Then Substack came into my life, and something changed for me.

I started noticing a completely different kind of digital experience. Here, I don’t feel the same pressure to keep moving from one piece of content to another. I can sit with an article. I can read it slowly. It may take five or ten minutes, or perhaps twenty or thirty minutes if it is a longer piece. But when an article has depth, something interesting happens: I don’t necessarily feel like immediately searching for the next one. The thought stays with me.

Sometimes, even after I close the article, a particular sentence, idea or experience remains somewhere in my mind. I find myself thinking about what the writer was trying to say. I try to understand the writer’s perspective, their experience and the thought behind their words. The article may end on the screen, but the conversation does not necessarily end inside the mind. It continues quietly for a while.

That, for me, is the biggest difference.

Social media often asks, “What comes next?”

A thoughtful article sometimes asks, “What do you think about this?”

One keeps the eyes moving. The other can make the mind stay.

Perhaps that is why I feel that the people I have come across through Substack are different in a beautiful way. They are writers, readers, thinkers and people willing to sit with an idea for a little longer. Of course, everyone is different, and I don’t want to generalise about an entire community. But there is something special about being part of a space where people are willing to read someone’s thoughts rather than simply consume the next piece of content.

And I am genuinely happy that I found this community.

It feels like we are not too late.

In a world where everything seems to be becoming faster, there is something comforting about finding people who still want to write, read, think and connect through words. We may come from completely different places and have completely different experiences, but for a few minutes, we sit with the same thought written by another human being. That itself feels meaningful.

Maybe we don’t need to completely remove social media from our lives. There is nothing wrong with enjoying a reel, watching a funny video or checking what is happening in the world. The question is whether we are still choosing how to spend our attention. Are we opening the phone because we genuinely want to, or because our hands have simply learned the habit?

Our free time is not empty time. It is some of the most valuable time we have. It is the space where we can read, write, learn, create, rest, think, walk, talk to someone we love or work on a dream that nobody else knows about. It is also the time when we can simply be with ourselves without constantly being told what to look at next.

So perhaps, once in a while, we should put the phone down and ask ourselves a few simple questions: What am I doing with my life? What am I learning? What am I building? What is the dream I have been postponing? Am I working towards my own future, or am I spending too much of my time watching someone else’s?

I don’t think our phones are the enemy, and I don’t think social media is something we need to fear. But I do think our attention is something worth protecting. We already give so much of our time to work, responsibilities and the expectations of others. The little free time that remains deserves some space for us too.

And perhaps that is what I have found here.

A place where I can slow down.

A place where I can read.

A place where I can write.

A place where someone else’s words can stay in my mind for a while instead of disappearing beneath the next swipe.

It is genuinely nice to see all of you here, and I am happy that I found this community when I did.

Maybe we are not simply escaping the endless scroll.

Maybe we are slowly finding our attention again.

And somewhere in that quiet space, perhaps we can finally hear our own dreams a little more clearly.

Have you ever felt the same way in your own life? Have you noticed your screen time quietly taking over the moments that were meant for you? If you have experienced something similar, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Share your story in the comments—I would genuinely like to know how you found your way back to yourself.