Touch Grass

Go outside. Connect with others. Have fun.

My oldest son, Jonah, told me that the worst thing that I ever did was give him an iPhone when he was ten years old.

I gave it to him then because he had to walk home from the middle school on his own, while I waited for his brother’s special ed bus. I told him that I needed to know where he was and that he was okay.

He responded, saying that at age ten, he shouldn’t have watched ISIS decapitate a man’s head on a news program on his phone. He shouldn’t have snuck his phone into bed and played video games until late into the night. There’s a lot more bad stuff that happened on that phone, I’m sure. He doesn’t tell me everything.

After Charlie Kirk was assassinated earlier this month, Utah Governor Spencer Cox urged people to get away from their computers and to touch grass. He described social media as a cancer, which was fueling negativity and insanity. And we all know that.

Any parent who watched their kids rot in their bedrooms for two years during the COVID shutdown years knows that the online world is toxic. Teachers can’t teach through a computer screen. Friendships can’t blossom on a computer screen. Life on a computer is a grey substitute for the real thing.

Today, Jonah has a strange relationship with technology. He avoids all social media, but he has a remote job as an AI trainer. Loves it; hates it. He moved away from our New York City area, with its high-pressure lifestyle, to live in a hostel in New Zealand with European hippies. He’s super happy, so that’s good.

Jonah’s not the only young person looking for alternatives. Because Steve and I think about getting a teardrop camper for week-long trips to Maine or Canada, I occasionally check out the RV Community Reddit thread. These folks are way more hardcore than we are. The folks in this thread are in their RVs all year, parking in a Cracker Barrel parking lot, with many opinions about disposing of black water. It’s actually fascinating reading.

Nearly half a million people in the United States live in RVs full-time. Many are there because they can’t afford proper housing, including young people. With the crappy job market for young people and million-dollar price tags on starter homes, an RV is their only option. At the same time, many in the RV Reddit thread are very happy with their living arrangement. They sit around a fire every night and make new friends at every rest stop.

So, you’ve got a bunch of young people who are staring at their screens. As I said last week, they aren’t going to bars and they aren’t meeting up with potential mates. They’re = not interested in having kids, especially among young women.

Recent polls show that young women care more about their careers and their emotional well-being than getting married. About the only group that is interested in having children is young men who voted for Trump. According to an NBC News poll:

Gen Z men who voted for Trump rate having children as the most important thing in their personal definition of success. Gen Z women who voted for Harris ranked having children as the second-least important thing in their personal definition of success.

So, no drinking, no socializing, no babies. What are people doing after work? They’re moisturizing, exfoliating, and detoxing. The trillion-dollar self-care industry takes time, girlfriend. This glowing skin does not happen on its own.

And concern with self-care isn’t just for young people. That industry has me targeted, too. They’re plugging ashwagandha pills to address my high cortisol levels, which have led to facial bloating. Thanks to the curly hair TikTok craze, I now use four different kinds of hair products in my hair every morning. For an hour today, I took a three-mile walk around the neighborhood with a weighted vest. I spent another two hours shopping for vegetables at the farmers’ market and cutting them up, because I’m embarking on a no-grains diet this week.

Self-care is work, too. It’s narcissism packaged up as health. Yes, I’m guilty of it, but I also recognize that it’s insanity. It’s the opposite of touching grass.

While I may have introduced Jonah to cell phones too early, we also took the boys on tons of Saturday trips into the woods. A quick flip through our photo archive has tons of evidence of communing with nature.

We probably did more hikes and adventures when the kids were younger. Before varsity sports and SAT prep. But we did it.

Those trips, I think, were some antidote to the toxicity of the online world. Touching grass might be a metaphor for getting away from the computer, but it’s also a real thing. So, go outside. Take a family member or a friend. It’s the best self-care you can do.