Week 6: Obsession

I took this photo last night of my housemate (with her consent, of course!) using her laptop in bed. It reminded me of this week's theme, "obsession," because of the way so many people are obsessed with using their phones or laptops in bed and in the dark- I am definitely guilty of this as well. The light from her laptop cast a soft glow of bluish light over her face and upper body from my perspective, but from my own experience I know that from her perspective the light looked harsh and bright, especially since she had opened her laptop only a couple minutes prior. Modern technology makes it so easy to read articles, watch videos, or scroll through social media in dark areas, and I do it all the time too. Though it's similar to using a flashlight to read books in bed, doing that took much more effort- you had to sit up, hold the book in one hand, and hold the flashlight in another. Reading like this while lying down may not be impossible, but from personal experience it took much more effort and it wasn't exactly comfortable. Phones and even laptops make it possible to read and do much more while lying down and using just one hand, which makes using these devices in the dark much more tempting. In addition, since it's comfortable, it's easy to do so for longer periods of time, even hours on end. It makes me worried for my eyesight, since I know that looking at bright screens in the dark isn't good for my eyes, but at the same time it's a hard habit to break. Recently I've been trying to limit my phone usage in the dark to only a couple minutes, or I'll go turn on a light. It's kind of ironic that I'm writing about this actually, because I've been using my phone and laptop so often while sitting backstage during Chess (I'm actually backstage right now), and there's no way to make it brighter unless there's a particularly bright cue on stage.