Struggling with or for Screen Addiction

Since the measures to protect us against COVID-19 started, I've started to be on YouTube more and more. I'd go from one video to another recommended one, and seldomly stop until I fall asleep. There are times when I've checked on the chicken or the dog and given them water or food, and I have even gone to the store to buy food for myself. OK, I buy ice-cream and don't eat much food nowadays beyond bread and butter and some forms of salami (some vegan, some not). I eat only what I like even when it makes me sick or when I get rashes due to allergies from the stuff and the majority of my time is spent online. In the last weeks I spent somewhere around 11 hours on YouTube a day.

So, what do I watch? The answer is nothing unusual yet nothing I can really be proud off. I want a new phone. So, I've been watching videos of the latest and the best phones -- like Google Pixel 4 and the Samsung Galaxy S20. I've watched all sorts of clips from random movies, e.g., Anchorman 2, Overload and many others, and a bunch of clips of people doing weird things like eating the world's largest slice of pizza and making cotton candy with a can. I've also gathered the money I found in the house and threatened grandma I'd buy my own new phone, but so far I have been afraid to do so....I even got my mother to promise she'd get me a new phone, but she said it will only happen if grandma and Ruxandra agree. And they don't want to agree. They want to make me do stuff. They want me to be good. And I want to be in charge of my own life even if at every opportunity I seem to mess things up. I do wash my own clothes, I can cook my own food (or I eat icecream) and I can finally sleep alone without being afraid of the dark even after watching horror movies.  I also want to be online almost all the time. I can't seem to help it. I find nothing else interesting to do. We have too many animals. I don't really care for them anymore. I am too old for them. And there is nothing else around that is even remotely interesting.

I have moments when I admit it's a problem, but most of the times I do not -- even though the extended screen use does give me headaches, and my back hurts. I answer back when Ruxandra or Grandma suggest something that might help. My lines are "Si ce daca nu vreau?" ("what if I don't want to"), "nu-mi pasa" ("I don't care"), "lasa-ma in pace" (leave-me alone) or "nu promit nimic" (I promise nothing; they need to appreciate that at least I am honest with them and myself here). It helps that I am bigger and stronger than they are and so they cannot make me do stuff I do not want to do. They have tried taking my phone and my computer away from me. OK, I offered the phone to grandma, but I did not think Ruxandra would actually take it to a place from where I could not get it back soon. It made me so mad I broke the car door, and a glass window; I did not get hurt, which is the first question dad asked when told of this mishap. Then I measured the window and gradma and Ruxandra made me buy the replacement window myself while nenea Gheorghe put it back in the door frame. All the repairs were around 400 lei, which grandma paid for. They deserved it because they've tried to take technology away from me.

I immediately found Edward's old phone, and I spent even more time online as a form of revenge -- against myself or against them. I no longer know. Then they gave my phone back and I averaged the 11 hours on youtube, again. So, Andy took it away from me. I no longer want to be with family. I just need to be online all the time and I have always found a way to go around them and their rules. Now my phone is in Chizatau, and I am in Lugoj. The computer is hidden in a place I could not find. But yesterday I found one of Ruxandra's old computers, and made it work. I understand electronics better than Ruxandra nowadays. There was a loose wire that I re-attached with my hot-glue gun because Edward had dropped the computer from the top of the closet. So, since yesterday afternoon, I've been spending all my time on the screen again -- only 7 hours yesterday because I only managed to fix the computer around noon, but I made up for it today by starting at 7 a.m.. Now, I feel grumpy and moody again.

When James was one, we had some friends who visited. There are no visitors now because of COVID-19. But then two of the children were teenagers, and the youngest was five. The latter was the only one not addicted to her phone because she did not yet have one. The older children, a boy and a girl (aged 13 and 15) whom I used to be great friends with  when we were younger, were on the screen all day long. Suddenly, we had nothing in common. Of course, growing up was partly at fault. What does an 11 year old have to do with teenagers? There is little in common. The summer was, however, sweltering hot, and their room was not a place one wanted to be in. Yet, they stayed in there all day. They did not find anything to do or to enjoy in a house full of animals and people. It did not help that my former friend was terribly afraid of chicken and would scream her head off when I brought one inside, which I did because it seemed fun at the time. I also remember explaining the dangers of screen addiction and how her back was hurting and bending because of lack of muscle, and because she spent all her day in bed on the screen. Her mom would find apologies for her saying it had to do with growing up and with becoming a woman. I am not a woman. But I am sure that being one and having breasts does nothing to help.

Today I look in the mirror and see my lousy position and my back bending. Yet I have too much pride and too little will to do anything about it. The addiction is just so strong and there is nothing else I find worthwhile. I am 13 and my room is a mess. There is food I left to rot in the kitchen with worms in it, balls from my toy guns are everywhere (inside and outside), and clothes and other crap.  I do wash my clothes and myself every day. My bed-sheet also goes in the wash often, but I never clean my room or the floors.  The neighbor brings me food to eat -- meat with potatoes and other stuff -- and I almost never eat it. Food lies in various stages of putrefaction throughout the house, and outside because the dog does not eat all of her food either and the whole place stinks. Because I am so moody and because it's cooler there, grandma is away with grandpa in Chizatau. Nenea Gheorghe is here -- working all day; he checks on the animals when he arrives and before he leaves -- and grandma comes often, but she is old and can no longer clean all the mess I make. When she is here, all she does is clean after me, and I sometimes help because I cannot be on the screen while she is watching me. Yet the moment she leaves, I am back on the screen. I want to be on the screen -- all the time. I don't want to be in Chizatau with her and Ruxandra. They do nothing that's interesting. There is nothing to do here or there.

I am not the only one who is addicted. The whole world spends too much time on their screens nowadays. And there are other things to be addicted to. Edward sits in the back garden at Chizatau reading. He is almost always hunched over a book. It's usually some novel he's read ten times before because Ruxandra refused to buy him more books. She said it's not healthy to do nothing else and that if he's read it before it should be easier to disentangle him from it because he knows the ending. Yet each day -- every day -- he reads before doing his chores or his homework or caring for the animals who often lack food and water until grandma and Ruxandra come by to care for them. Of course, I am no better, but I don't care and I don't want to care.

We used to go to judo every day, but it's inside. I did not have any back problems then and because we'd run a lot, I was the fastest among my classmates. Today judo seems like a life-time ago. Sports cannot be done with a mask on. So, there is little chance they'd be open this fall. Perhaps when school starts, there will be more to do. But will it start this fall? or will it be on Zoom? Otherwise, I just want to be left alone to be online.