Category: Humor

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Modern TV: Everything to Watch, Nothing Worth Watching

Modern TV

A sarcastic look at reality TV, endless reboots, and how modern television forgot how to make us laugh.

We live in the golden age of television. Modern TV delivers hundreds of channels, dozens of streaming services, and enough programming to occupy a person from birth until the end of universe. Yet somehow, I can spend 30 minutes scrolling through menus before announcing there’s absolutely nothing worth watching.

Humanity has placed a television studio in virtually every pocket, developed algorithms capable of predicting our behavior, and made entertainment available anywhere on Earth. Yet apparently, nobody can figure out how to make a decent half-hour sitcom. I’m not asking for Shakespeare. Sometimes I just want a goofy character, a ridiculous misunderstanding, and a punchline that makes me laugh hard enough to snort whatever I’m drinking. Preferably without requiring me to apologize to the furniture.

Reality Television: Making Stupidity a Renewable Resource

Somewhere in Hollywood, an executive discovered that hiring professional actors and competent writers costs money. Why bother when you can put twelve people with questionable judgment in a house and encourage them to behave like unsupervised toddlers? And thus, reality television conquered civilization.

We have strangers marrying strangers, wealthy people arguing with other wealthy people, and contestants competing for romantic relationships with individuals they probably wouldn’t speak to at a bus stop. Every episode features someone crying in a bathroom, a dramatic confrontation, and at least one person declaring, “I’m just being real.” No, you’re being obnoxious. There’s a difference.

And why are we supposed to enjoy watching people humiliate themselves or each other? Prank shows are particularly baffling. Frightening an unsuspecting person, ruining their afternoon, and shouting “It’s just a prank!” doesn’t suddenly make the behavior clever. It makes you the reason warning labels exist.

I prefer comedy where everyone gets to laugh together. Nobody needs to cry, call an attorney, or issue a public apology afterward. A little silliness, a terrible impression, or the ridiculous convergence circumstances can accomplish the same thing without requiring a psychological evaluation.

Cooking Competitions: Because Apparently Your Taste Buds Are Wrong

I enjoy food. I eat it several times a day, sometimes when I’m not even hungry. I consider myself reasonably qualified on the subject. What I don’t understand is why watching someone else prepare food I cannot taste is entertainment.

And apparently, cooking and baking must now be competitive sports. Three celebrity chefs solemnly declare that one person’s chocolate soufflé is superior because it possesses a more sophisticated flavor profile. According to whom? Perhaps I don’t like truffles. Perhaps lavender belongs in soap rather than dessert. Perhaps I prefer my steak without a decorative smear of something resembling finger paint. Taste is subjective, regardless of how expensive the judge’s culinary education was.

Then there’s presentation. A contestant spends four hours preparing dinner, only to be criticized because the garnish fails to communicate a coherent artistic vision. It’s a pork chop, not a Renaissance fresco.

The baking competitions are worse. Someone constructs a six-foot Eiffel Tower out of cake, fondant, and what appears to be industrial scaffolding. The judges inspect it like a structural engineering project before announcing that the sponge is slightly dry. Perhaps that’s because the contestant spent eleven hours building a suspension bridge out of frosting.

And the same absurdity extends to dancing and runway competitions. Technical skills can be evaluated, certainly, but whether a performance is moving or an outfit is beautiful remains personal preference. Yet a handful of industry insiders pronounce their opinions as though they’ve discovered universal truth. Meanwhile, I’m sitting at home thinking the dress resembles a shower curtain and the dancer appears to be having a medical emergency. But what do I know? I haven’t been professionally trained to appreciate interpretive anguish.

HGTV: Home Improvement for Millionaires

Remember when HGTV actually taught home improvement? You could learn to replace a faucet, repair drywall, install a backsplash, or renovate a bathroom without taking out a second mortgage. You might even finish the episode knowing something useful.

Now we watch a freelance butterfly photographer and a part-time wellness consultant shopping for a $1.7 million home. They need five bedrooms, a gourmet kitchen, mountain views, and enough outdoor entertaining space to host the G7 summit. Naturally, they reject the first house because the guest bathroom has brass fixtures. Apparently, replacing a faucet is an insurmountable obstacle when you’re spending seven figures.

Then come the renovations. A perfectly functional house is purchased, and within twelve minutes, someone is swinging a sledgehammer through the kitchen. Why? Because the house has walls. Every home must now be “open concept,” resembling an airport terminal where the entire family can enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of whatever is burning in the kitchen.

And can we please stop calling it an open concept? A concept is an idea. Once you’ve knocked down the walls and built the damn thing, it’s an open floor plan. You don’t live in a concept. You live in a house. Although, judging by some of these renovations, the concept may have been better left on paper.

Naturally, the contractor discovers a dramatic problem behind a wall. Plumbing! Electrical wiring! Structural supports! In a house! Who could possibly have anticipated this? Fortunately, the problem is resolved by adding another $85,000 to the budget.

I miss the days when home improvement meant learning how to save $200 replacing a toilet, rather than watching someone spend $200,000 relocating one. At this rate, the next HGTV series will feature a couple spending $3 million renovating a garden shed because the lawnmower deserves an open floor plan.

Whatever Happened to Just Being Funny?

Remember sitcoms? How I Met Your Mother gave us friends navigating relationships and the general stupidity of adulthood. Two and a Half Men gave us Charlie Harper, a man whose entire existence demonstrated why good judgment matters. Neither required us to reconsider our worldview. They just made us laugh.

We had Cheers, Frasier, and The King of Queens. Ordinary people making ridiculous decisions, misunderstanding each other, and occasionally learning absolutely nothing. It was glorious.

Consider how little was required. Cheers needed a bar. Seinfeld needed an apartment and a diner. Frasier needed two brothers capable of turning a cup of coffee into an international incident. Today, Hollywood apparently needs $200 million, seventeen executive producers, a cinematic universe, and a traumatic origin story to accomplish the same thing.

And when executives can’t think of something original, they reboot something we loved 25 years ago. Except now everyone is miserable, emotionally damaged, and required to deliver important speeches about contemporary society.

Imagine a modern Gilligan’s Island. Gilligan spends six episodes processing childhood trauma, the Skipper confronts his authoritarian leadership style, and the Professor delivers a passionate monologue about climate change. Meanwhile, the Minnow is still sitting on the beach because nobody bothered to fix the damn boat.

I’m not opposed to thoughtful television. MASH* and All in the Family addressed serious subjects brilliantly. But they understood that entertainment and meaningful storytelling could coexist without every episode resembling mandatory workplace training.

Sometimes I just want to laugh at something gloriously stupid. A ridiculous voice, a terrible song about a sandwich, or a grown man attempting to convince his family that the dog has been secretly running the household finances. Nobody’s being humiliated, nobody’s delivering a message, and everyone gets to laugh together. Except perhaps the dog, who has apparently been embezzling the biscuit budget.

Congratulations, You’ve Reinvented Cable

Remember when streaming was supposed to save us from expensive cable bundles and commercials? Now we subscribe to multiple services, each with its own password, pricing tiers, and mysterious collection of programming. And the commercials are back. At least cable had the decency to put everything on one bill.

Finding an old sitcom now requires an archaeological expedition through six applications, only to discover it moved to another service last Tuesday. And when I finally locate it, the television demands that I verify I’m a member of my own household.

I’m sitting in my living room, holding a remote control, surrounded by furniture I purchased, being interrogated by a television about whether I belong here. I half expect it to demand two forms of identification, a utility bill, and a notarized statement from the dog. The dog refuses to cooperate. He’s watching squirrels and considers the entire process beneath him. Frankly, I’m starting to agree with the dog.

Just Make Me Laugh

Perhaps I’m getting older. I prefer to think I’m becoming increasingly selective about how much nonsense I’m willing to tolerate. I don’t need strangers screaming at each other, another million-dollar kitchen renovation, or a beloved childhood character reimagined as a miserable shell of their former self. And I certainly don’t need every television program joining the endless cultural argument.

Give me clever sitcoms, ridiculous misunderstandings, terrible impressions, and silly songs. Give me a detective who solves crimes, a spaceship that explores the galaxy, or a game show where somebody wins a refrigerator and everyone applauds. Give me characters who are funny because they’re human, not because they’re delivering a carefully constructed message.

The world is already serious, divided, angry, and exhausting. I don’t need my television joining the argument. Sometimes I just want to sit on the couch, turn off my brain for half an hour, and laugh.

Instead, I spend 30 minutes searching for something to watch, give up, and go to bed.

At least the pillow doesn’t require a subscription.

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Christmas annexed Thanksgiving, and I’m Apparently an Accomplice

Santa carrying the Thanksgiving turkey away

An OPU Ventures observation on Christmas creep, holiday madness, and the unpaid labor of American fathers.

I love Christmas. I really do. The lights, the food, the music, the family traditions. It’s a wonderful time of year. What I don’t understand is why we’re celebrating it before I’ve finished putting away the lawn furniture. Apparently, the moment the Fourth of July fireworks stop smoking, somebody at Walmart yells, “RELEASE THE REINDEER!”

It’s September. I’m still wearing shorts. The Red Sox haven’t finished disappointing me, and the pool isn’t closed. Yet, in a retail warehouse somewhere, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is being thawed out like a Thanksgiving turkey.

There was a time when holidays respected boundaries. Halloween belonged to October. Thanksgiving had November. Christmas arrived in December. Everyone stayed in their lane, nobody got hurt, and Dad had time to recover between financial disasters.

Now you walk into a store looking for Halloween candy and find a twelve-foot inflatable Santa standing next to a skeleton. The witch is wearing a Santa hat, the pumpkins are on clearance, and somebody is selling peppermint-scented toilet paper. Nothing says the birth of our Savior quite like a festive bathroom experience.

And poor Thanksgiving. The forgotten middle child of American holidays. Once a proud celebration of gratitude, family, football, and eating until your pants became a medical concern, it’s now a brief carbohydrate-loading session before Black Friday.

Adam Sandler tried to save Thanksgiving by singing about turkey. Jimmy Buffett actually warned us with “Santa Stole Thanksgiving for Christmas.” The man practically exposed an international conspiracy, and we ignored him because we were busy buying light-up candy canes.

Santa has become the CEO of Christmas Incorporated. Rudolph runs logistics, the elves are middle management, and Frosty handles public relations. Thanksgiving was acquired in a hostile takeover, its assets liquidated, and November reassigned to seasonal merchandising. The Easter Bunny has retained legal counsel.

But here’s the thing. As a husband and father, I have absolutely no authority over when Christmas begins. My wife loves Christmas. The kids love Christmas. They love the lights, the decorations, the cookies, the movies, and turning our house into something resembling a Hallmark movie filmed inside a Hobby Lobby.

And because they love Christmas, I have a job. I am the Vice President of Christmas Operations, Facilities Maintenance, and Heavy Lifting. It’s an unpaid position with no vacation, no retirement plan, and a supervisor who keeps moving the garland three inches to the left.

My responsibilities begin with retrieving approximately seventeen plastic storage bins from the basement. Every bin is labeled “Christmas,” which is about as useful as labeling every drawer in the kitchen “Stuff.”

One contains ornaments. Another contains lights. A third contains broken lights that we’re apparently saving for sentimental reasons. There’s a ceramic snowman wrapped like an Egyptian mummy, three wreaths, and a small decorative village whose residents appear to have been displaced by a housing crisis.

I haul everything upstairs, where my wife has a vision. I have a ladder.

The decorating process involves placing objects exactly where instructed, moving them slightly to the left, then to the right, then back to where they started. Eventually, my wife asks, “What do you think?”

Gentlemen, this is not a question. It’s a test. The correct answer is, “I like it. What do you think?” I’ve been married long enough to know that expressing an independent opinion about decor is how men end up sleeping in the garage.

Then comes the living room Christmas tree, because of course there are several other smaller trees throughout the house. My job is to hold it steady while everyone else determines whether it’s straight. I can use a carpenter’s level, a laser measuring device, and NASA satellite imagery, but if my wife says it’s leaning, it’s leaning.

The kids are meanwhile having the time of their lives. They’re hanging ornaments, eating cookies, singing Christmas songs, and making helpful suggestions like, “Dad, we need more lights outside!” That is, of course, if they stay engaged for more than five minutes. Because teenagers am I right.

More lights. Of course. Apparently, we’re trying to make the house visible from the International Space Station. Outdoor decorating is a magical experience involving frozen fingers, tangled extension cords, and the annual discovery that a perfectly functional strand of lights stops working the moment you attach it to the roof, twenty feet above the clips and spare bulbs.

This is generally when the neighbors hear Dad expressing the Christmas spirit using vocabulary not found in the Bible.

And then there’s the music. I love Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and Andy Williams. But after hearing “Jingle Bell Rock” seventeen times before breakfast, I begin to understand why the Grinch lived alone.

Of course, I know every word. I’ll complain about Christmas music while singing along to it, usually off-key and with enough enthusiasm to embarrass the children. It’s a gift.

The Christmas movies are no better. My wife loves them. The kids love them. I sit there pretending to read while explaining that the handsome stranger is obviously the secret owner of the Christmas tree farm and the struggling bakery owner somehow lives in a house worth $1.4 million.

And yet, I stay on the couch. Because the house is bright. The kids are laughing. My wife is happy. There are cookies on the table, the tree is glowing, and nobody is asking me to fix anything. For approximately seven minutes.

That’s the part of Christmas I actually love. Not the shopping, the decorations, or the annual electrical engineering project on the front lawn. It’s watching the people I love enjoy themselves.

Most dads understand this. We complain about the work, the expense, the music, and the decorations, but we’d do it all again tomorrow. We just don’t want anyone to know we’re enjoying ourselves. It would ruin our reputation.

So yes, I’ll grumble about Christmas starting in September. I’ll complain about Santa’s hostile takeover of Thanksgiving and threaten to send Mariah Carey a cease-and-desist letter.And then I’ll carry the boxes, hang the lights, straighten the tree, and move the garland three inches to the left.

Because my family loves Christmas, and I love my family. Besides, after years of marriage and fatherhood, I’ve discovered the secret to a peaceful holiday season. Happy wife. Happy kids. Dad gets to sit down. And if my wife wants Christmas decorations up in October, that’s fine.

I’ll get the ladder, or better yet I will in my most tv dad tone ask one of the teenagers to get the ladder. Go ahead, laugh.

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Three Things Currently Testing My Patience: Traffic, the Sox, and Winter

Hartford traffic, Red Sox management, and the annual cancellation of summer.

There comes a point when a person simply needs to complain. Not about anything particularly important, mind you. The world has plenty of serious problems, and I’m certainly not qualified to solve most of them. I’m talking about those everyday absurdities that make you wonder whether anyone is actually paying attention. The kind of things that aren’t worth losing sleep over but are absolutely worth several hundred words of unnecessary sarcasm. This week, my grievances involve Connecticut’s apparent inability to build a functioning highway, the Boston Red Sox and their fascinating commitment to ignoring the obvious, and the annual realization that living in New England means voluntarily surrendering half the year to darkness and respiratory illness.

Hartford: A Small City with Big-City Traffic and a Highway Where the Waterfront Should Be

Hartford, Connecticut, is a relatively small city that has somehow achieved the traffic congestion of metropolitan Los Angeles without the inconvenience of having millions of people living there. It’s an extraordinary accomplishment. Even accounting for commuters, commercial trucking, and the occasional person who genuinely wants to visit Hartford, the math doesn’t seem to work. There simply aren’t enough people to explain why traveling through the city requires the patience of a Buddhist monk and the bladder control of an astronaut.

Interstate 84 is seemingly under permanent construction, with projects lasting years before crews return to tear up the same stretch of pavement they just finished. At this point, I’m convinced Connecticut doesn’t actually complete highway projects. It simply rotates construction crews between locations until everyone involved qualifies for retirement. Naturally, much of the work seems to happen during rush hour, because apparently the most efficient time to close two lanes is precisely when everyone needs them. Somewhere in Hartford, there must be a warehouse filled with completed road projects, carefully preserved so nobody accidentally installs one.

And then there’s Interstate 91, another magnificent exercise in urban planning that somehow manages to combine gridlock with the destruction of a perfectly good waterfront. Consider the Connecticut River. Hartford sits alongside New England’s great waterway, an opportunity that practically begs for parks, restaurants, shops, museums, hotels, and pedestrian promenades. Think Savannah’s River Street, with its historic charm, waterfront dining, and people voluntarily spending money because they actually want to be there. Hartford could have something similar.

Instead, we have Interstate 91, an impressive collection of concrete, Jersey barriers, graffiti, and assorted roadside debris running alongside the river. Somewhere, someone apparently looked at that waterfront and thought, “You know what would really improve this? Four lanes of people trying to get to Massachusetts.” Rather than finding a way to route through traffic around the city, or even across the river and back again farther north, we chose to dedicate prime waterfront real estate to the automotive equivalent of a clogged artery.

To be fair, Hartford does have Riverfront Recapture and some riverfront spaces, but accessing and enjoying them shouldn’t feel like visiting a nature preserve located behind an industrial loading dock. Imagine the economic and cultural possibilities of a connected, walkable waterfront that gives people a reason to visit the capital rather than simply endure it. Instead, we get another construction project, another traffic jam, and the comforting knowledge that somewhere in Connecticut, an orange traffic barrel has better job security than most of us. At this point, I don’t need GPS to navigate Hartford. I need a construction schedule, a packed lunch, and a letter explaining my absence to my family.

The Boston Red Sox: A Yearlong Commitment to Doing Absolutely Nothing About the Obvious

The Boston Red Sox entered last offseason with three problems so obvious that even a casual observer could identify them between trips to the refrigerator. Too many outfielders, a questionable middle infield, and the absence of a genuinely terrifying hitter. Not a promising prospect. Not a versatile athlete. Not another guy who can play six positions but apparently can’t hit consistently at any of them. A bona fide, Hall of Fame-potential hitter who makes opposing pitchers reconsider their career choices.

The front office knew this. The fans knew this. Somewhere in the greater Boston area, a golden retriever watching NESN probably knew this. And yet, the organization approached the offseason with all the urgency of a man deciding whether to replace the batteries in his television remote.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some solid additions in Gray, Suarez, and Contreras. And the role players catching lightning in a bottle for six weeks was amazing. But by the All-Star break, these same weaknesses remained glaringly obvious, offering management a second opportunity to address them. Instead, the organization apparently decided to conduct a fascinating scientific experiment: What happens if we acknowledge our problems repeatedly but refuse to solve them? Or better yet, send legitimate left-handed pitching youth for a maybe.

Well, the season is over, and congratulations, gentlemen, we have our results. The outfield remains overcrowded, the middle infield remains an adventure, and opposing pitchers continue to sleep comfortably the night before facing Boston. It’s difficult to understand the strategy, although I’m increasingly convinced the front office operates like a homeowner who knows the roof is leaking but decides to purchase another lawn mower because it was available at a reasonable price.

Of course, there’s always an explanation. We’re building for the future. We’re maintaining flexibility. We believe in our (ever dwindling) youth. We’re evaluating opportunities. We’re being disciplined with our resources. Wonderful. I’m sure those phrases look magnificent in a PowerPoint presentation, but at some point, someone has to actually build a baseball team. The goal, as I understand it, is to win baseball games, preferably enough of them to participate meaningfully in October. Not to win an imaginary trophy for having the most financially responsible collection of interchangeable outfielders.

Meanwhile, Fenway remains a magnificent place to spend a small fortune watching professional athletes demonstrate the importance of leaving runners in scoring position. Naturally, I’ll be back next season, watching every game and complaining about the exact same things. This is what makes Red Sox fandom special. It’s an abusive relationship with a beautiful ballpark and exceptionally expensive beer. Treatment is available, but unfortunately it involves becoming a Yankees fan, and I’d rather take my chances.

Closing the Pool: The Annual Announcement That Happiness Has Been Canceled

Closing the swimming pool is New England’s annual reminder that the best part of the year has ended and we’re about to spend the next six months being cold, damp, and vaguely irritated. It’s not simply the loss of swimming, warm evenings, or sitting outside with absolutely nothing productive to accomplish. It’s the knowledge of what’s coming. The sun will begin disappearing at approximately 3:47 in the afternoon, the temperature will alternate between freezing and just warm enough to produce freezing rain, and every public gathering will become an informal exchange program for respiratory infections.

Soon we’ll all be coughing, sneezing, and asking one another whether it’s allergies, a cold, the flu, or whatever exciting new virus has decided to spend the winter in New England. Nothing says seasonal joy quite like standing in a pharmacy line behind twelve people who sound as though they’re auditioning for a tuberculosis documentary.

Meanwhile, people will enthusiastically announce how much they love fall because of the colorful leaves, which is a bit like celebrating a house fire because the flames are pretty. Yes, the foliage is lovely. So is the pool when it’s open, the grass when it’s green, and the sun when it remains visible long enough to finish dinner. Autumn is essentially nature’s going-out-of-business sale, and winter is the unpleasant liquidation that follows.

The leaves provide approximately two weeks of spectacular scenery followed by six weeks of manual labor, during which every tree in New England apparently conspires to deposit its entire inventory directly into my yard. And just when you’ve finished cleaning everything up, the weather rewards your efforts with forty degrees, sideways rain, and a wind that somehow finds the one opening in your jacket.

The pool cover goes on, the patio furniture gets put away, and I begin the annual tradition of looking at Florida real estate listings while pretending I’m merely curious about property values. By December, we’ll be setting our clocks by whichever brief appearance the sun makes between breakfast and lunch.

By February, I’ll be negotiating with myself over whether 42 degrees qualifies as a nice day. It doesn’t. It never did. But after three months of New England winter, apparently my standards become as questionable as the Red Sox front office’s roster decisions. And every spring, I’ll reopen the pool with the enthusiasm of a man who has somehow forgotten everything that happened the previous October. Apparently, seasonal amnesia is the only thing keeping the population of New England from relocating en masse to the Carolinas.

Until Next Time

There you have it. Three entirely unrelated grievances that have accomplished absolutely nothing except occupy several minutes of your time and provide me with a socially acceptable outlet for mild irritation. Hartford will continue constructing the same highways, the Red Sox will undoubtedly discover another promising outfielder, and winter will arrive regardless of my objections. I’ll continue driving, watching baseball, and paying to heat a house in a climate that occasionally seems personally offended by my existence. If nothing else, complaining is one of the few remaining recreational activities that doesn’t require a subscription, a service fee, or a reservation made six months in advance. Although I’m sure someone is working on that.

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We Have Apparently Defeated Boredom

How We Live With Boredom While Being Entertained Constantly

The more I think about it, the phone itself probably isn’t the problem. Blaming the phone is like blaming the refrigerator because you ate an entire cheesecake. The phone was just there. It’s what we’ve put inside the phone that deserves some attention, because we have become extraordinarily good at creating things that prevent us from ever having an unoccupied moment, avoiding boredom.

TikTok may be humanity’s finest achievement in this area. TikTok doesn’t even ask what you’d like to watch. It has removed that burden from your life. You open the app and TikTok basically says, “Don’t worry. We’ve been watching you. We know what you like.” Which should be terrifying. Instead we say, “Great. Show me the raccoon.”

And TikTok does. Then another raccoon. Then a guy fixing a carburetor. Then a woman explaining a murder from 1987. Then a recipe involving cream cheese that seems medically irresponsible. Then another raccoon. At no point did you request any of this. You didn’t wake up that morning thinking, “I’d really like a nice mixture of small mammals, automotive repair, unsolved homicide and dangerous amounts of dairy.” But TikTok knew.

That’s the genius of the endless scroll. There’s no ending. Books end. Movies end. Television shows end. Concerts end. Relationships end. Eventually even a trip to IKEA ends, although by that point you’re carrying a lamp you don’t remember selecting and your marriage has been tested. The scroll just keeps going.

Instagram has a slightly different purpose. Instagram lets us keep track of all the people who are currently having a better day than we are. Apparently everyone is in Italy. I don’t know when this happened. I’ll open Instagram on a Tuesday afternoon and discover that seventeen people I know are standing somewhere along the Amalfi Coast. Was there a meeting? Did I miss an email? I’m sitting at home eating leftover chicken, and apparently everyone I’ve ever met is drinking something orange beside the Mediterranean.

And everyone looks fantastic. Nobody posts a picture from the fourth day of the vacation when the family is tired, somebody has diarrhea and Dad has become irrationally angry about the hotel parking situation. I would follow that account. That’s useful travel information.

Facebook has become something entirely different. Facebook is where you keep in touch with family, remember birthdays and discover that someone you knew briefly in 1996 has developed extremely strong opinions about things. You don’t remember this person being particularly opinionated in 1996. You barely remember this person. But apparently Kevin has done his research.

Kevin has thoughts about monetary policy now. Kevin used to eat glue. But perhaps Kevin has grown. Either way, he has prepared a fourteen-paragraph post about interest rates, and somewhere underneath it two people from your graduating class are about to stop speaking to each other.

YouTube gets me in an entirely different way because YouTube doesn’t feel like wasting time. YouTube feels educational. That’s dangerous. I’ll go to YouTube because I need to know how to fix something. This is responsible adult behavior. I type “how to replace bathroom faucet,” find a seven-minute video, and feel like a capable homeowner.

An hour later I’m watching a 54-year-old man named Steve build a log cabin in northern Idaho using tools from 1883. I don’t live in Idaho. I don’t own land in Idaho. I’ve never considered building a log cabin. But Steve is about to start the chimney, and at this point I have an emotional investment. I’m not leaving Steve now. He’s done beautiful work.

Reddit is even more dangerous because Reddit contains the answer to every question you didn’t know you had. You can type almost anything into a search engine followed by the word “Reddit” and discover that hundreds of people have already spent several years discussing it. “Why does my washing machine smell weird Reddit?” Boom. There’s your community.

Four people know exactly what’s wrong. Three insist you bought the wrong washing machine. Someone recommends vinegar. Someone else says vinegar will destroy it. Two people begin arguing about front-loading machines. Then, somehow, someone blames the government. You close Reddit knowing less than when you arrived but feeling strangely involved.

And then there are news apps. I check the news several times a day, which I tell myself is because I like to remain informed. That’s probably true the first time. By the sixth time, I’m apparently just checking whether civilization is still there. It is. Excellent. I’ll check again after lunch.

Sports apps may be worse because sports have the audacity to happen slowly. Baseball is particularly troublesome. I’ll check the Red Sox score: 3–2. I’ll put the phone down, thirty seconds will pass, and I’ll check again. Still 3–2. What did I think was going to happen? It’s baseball. The pitcher may still be looking at the catcher. Nevertheless, apparently I need visual confirmation.

But perhaps the strangest thing is that the phone itself knows exactly what we’re doing. Every week my iPhone sends me a Screen Time report, and I hate this feature. “Your screen time was up 14% last week.” I don’t remember asking for a performance review from my telephone.

It’s especially irritating because the phone was there the entire time. It participated. You can’t spend all week saying, “Hey, look at this. Somebody liked something. Breaking news. The Red Sox are losing. Someone you barely remember has a birthday,” and then show up Sunday morning wearing little imaginary glasses like an accountant. “Chris, we need to discuss your numbers.”

You were my dealer. Now you’re my therapist? The phone will even suggest that perhaps I should reduce my screen time. That’s rich. This is like a bartender sliding your eighth beer across the counter and saying, “You know, you should really think about drinking less.” Maybe I should, Gary, but you’re sending some mixed signals.

The remarkable part is that we have done all of this because, apparently, at some point we collectively decided that boredom was unacceptable. Not merely unpleasant, but something requiring immediate intervention. Waiting for the dentist? Phone. Waiting for coffee? Phone. Sitting on the toilet? Phone. Watching television? Somehow, also phone.

That last one is particularly impressive because we’re already being entertained. We’re sitting six feet away from a 65-inch television containing professional actors who have spent months and millions of dollars attempting to hold our attention, and halfway through the show our brain decides, “This is good, but I wonder what strangers are doing.”

So we check. Someone made tacos. Excellent. Back to the murder mystery. Wait, what happened? Rewind. Check the phone during the rewind. Miss it again. At some point you have to admire the efficiency.

We’ve managed to turn watching television into a task requiring two screens, three attempts and a recap from the person sitting next to us who was also on their phone. Nobody knows who killed the victim, but we all saw the tacos.

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