Let Your Mind Wander

The other day on Reddit, someone asked, “How did people live before the internet and smartphones? What did they do all day?”

What do you mean how did people live without the internet!? We did things. We engaged with our families, friends, and communities. We played outside for hours. We did chores. We went to afterschool activities. We went to the library and checked out stacks of books. We made projects in the garage with scrap pieces of wood and a few basic tools. We made rafts out of winter sleds and chunks of styrofoam and floated down the river. It blows my mind to consider how starkly life has changed since we gained broad access to the internet, and especially smartphones. They truly have changed how we live, and often that change is for the better. We have access to endless information which can allow us to make more informed choices in our lives.

But we’ve also lost real boredom. We can scroll endlessly through social media engaging in all sorts of content and yet we’re not actually present. We zone out while “liking” random cat videos but we don’t really engage, not with each other and not with our own brains.

I have always been curious. There were times in my childhood when I was frustrated at the lack of answers to all of my questions. I wanted to know why hummingbird wings moved so fast that you couldn’t see them. I wanted to know how our dog knew when we’d be home from school. I wanted to know why Melissa could climb the gym ropes faster than I could even though I could run faster than her. 

More often than not, my questions went unanswered. Once the internet was widely available, I could answer all of those early questions and many more. Having a question and finding the answer scratches an itch in my brain and now I can do it in a matter of seconds. No more finding a ride to the library and spending hours trying to find the answer! 

But what has been the cost? Is immediate access to answers really beneficial to us? We now live in a world where everyone with a smartphone thinks they are an expert on the history of the Middle East, child-raising, and legal matters. All because they can Google an answer, read the first title they see, and use it as a simple answer to a complicated question. Learning is so much more than just the answer – it’s a whole process. 

When I was a kid, if I was going to put in the legwork to find an answer, the question had to be important to me. It meant a trip to the library after school to ask the librarian for books on the subject. It meant asking my grandparents, a family member or a teacher. The biggest benefit was that I never got a one-line answer to my questions. I got answers based on the experience of whoever I was asking. It meant seeing things from another angle, another point of view. Multiple answers from multiple sources along with my own thoughts, allowed me to form a more complete picture of the question I was asking in the first place. It was a much better experience than plucking the top result from Google or Chat GPT. 

Sometimes I couldn’t find an answer. Maybe no one knew what I was talking about, or the book didn’t exist at our small town library. But that is where the real benefit came in. When there’s no one to give you an answer, you ponder. You wonder. You start to tackle the question from many angles and perspectives as you think about it. There is so much benefit in going through the process. It is exercise for our brain.

With the endless attention-sucking that the internet and phones cause, we’ve lost so much of this process. Too many people no longer wonder or ponder. We are effectively failing to exercise our brains by never having to think about things. For many of us, most of our thought processing goes to our jobs and the rest of our lives are on autopilot. We are so mentally tired that questioning and considering the answers on our own feels exhausting. We struggle with decision fatigue because the information we have access to now is so large that we have to spend time figuring out what is real or valid.

This topic may seem like it has nothing to do with Wild Gym. But our brain health is linked to our body health. When our nutrition and fitness are poor, then our brain health is poor, too. We can’t think clearly, we can’t remember important things, and we can’t problem-solve and think critically. Our brains need their own exercise, but they are also heavily impacted by the movement we do with our bodies. Studies are now showing that even after people start to develop the tell-tale amyloid plaques of Alzheimer’s disease, a major lifestyle change can reverse that process. It all has to do with the way we treat our bodies and the impact that has on our brains. I have no doubt that works in reverse as well, what we do with our brains, impacts our bodies. The lack of curiosity and engagement in the world that so many people have is just as detrimental to their well-being as being a couch potato. A sedentary brain is no better than a sedentary body. That is why you see apps such as Luminosity and Elevate selling in the app stores. Yet we can exercise our brains simply by using them as we always have – to think through questions and problems. 

Be bored once in a while. Let your mind wander. When a question comes to mind, resist the urge to pick up your phone to Google for the AI-driven answer. Think about it. You likely will find that it feels just as hard and as frustrating as the first time you tried to do a pull-up or run 5 miles. Taking time to think rather than pulling out your phone for a quick answer will push you out of your comfort zone. And it should. Humanity is losing out on creativity and innovation because our thinking only goes as far as what we can Google. As crazy as it sounds, these days putting in hard work means allowing our brains the space and boredom to think. It will feel uncomfortable, just like a burpee. Because when our brains aren’t exercised, they languish, and boredom is fuel for the brain.

At Wild Gym, we advocate for moving your body, spending time outdoors, and expanding your imagination of what is possible. Imagination is a skill we now have to practice, and it requires that we put in hard work with our brains. Once in a while, consider how you could solve a problem or answer a question if you didn’t have the internet in your pocket. You might surprise yourself.