I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. They seem, at my age, arbitrary. Things that a person can start at any time, they put off to the first day of the year, along with many other people. For me, the question is: why wait? That said, I do look at personal trends and things always with an eye toward improvement. As 2025 draws to a close, one trend stands out among all others. I have become screen weary.

Since the fall of 1994 I have spent the better part of 8 hours a day (at minimum) with my eyes on screens. This trend took a jump around 2008 or so with the advent of smartphones and similar devices. Imagine! One third of a typical day spent looking at screens. Factor in 8 hours of sleep (generous, I admit) and at least half of my waking hours for the last 31+ years has been spent looking at screens. I am tired of it. Exhausted by screens might be a better characterization. Screen weary is more poetic. Beginning in 2026, I am resolved to cut as much of my screen time as possible, going from screen weary to screen wary. This is easier said than done.

My day job still requires me to look at screens. Indeed, I have three screens in my office over which I divide the various work I am engaged in: a screen for email and messages, another “working screen” and a third for reference or meetings. As I still have a few years to go before I retire, there is no way I can avoid these screens. But already, throughout 2025 I have been slowly breaking my bond with other screens. I’ve stepped away from hobby coding. After thirty-five years of hobby coding, I’m more than ready to retire from that. I try to do much of my reading on paper books. I subscribe to a pile of paper magazines just so that I have some additional reading options that are not on a screen. I don’t take many photos with my phone any longer—preferring to live in the moment. I’ve all but abandoned social media.

In 2026 I’m looking to step away from screens further. Indeed, in an ideal world, the only time I would find myself on screens (outside of work) would be when writing for the blog, composing final drafts of other writing (with earlier drafts done on paper¹), occasional calls and texts with family and friends, and of course, a movie or TV show now and then. (On an actual TV rather than my phone or laptop.) My journal is already on paper. I have an appointment book that substitutes for my calendar (updated weekly from the family calendar). Even my notes, which have historically gone into Obsidian as plain text, are going onto scraps of paper which I manually index. All in an effort to cut down my screen time.

I have no particular aim beyond cutting the time as much as practical. I’ve been using my vacation as a kind of experiment and found that in the first week of vacation, my screen time averaged 2 hours and 14 minutes. Last week, not counting work time, my screen time was more than double that, at 4 hours and 36 minutes, meaning my eyes were looking at screens more than 12 hours a day. The week before that my non-work screen time averaged 6 hours! If I can manage non-work screen time below 2 hours a day for 2026, I’ll call that a victory. And a start.

1. Or better yet, a good old fashioned typewriter. ↩︎