In 2032, a TikTok livestream will point at an exit door of a small clinic, waiting for a patient to exit. The camera will be held by a friend of this self appointed news anchor on TikTok. He will stream it live to his followers who are watching from all over the world. Some will be in bed. Some will be on the toilet seat. Some will be in class ignoring the teacher in the distance.
Eight million people will watch the livestream. None will understand it.. Behind the clinic's door would be the first patient to receive a prescription from a renowned doctor in the field of mental health. When the patient exits through the door, the anchor will ask him, "How does it feel like to be the first to receive this prescription?" All over the world, distracted teens will listen eagerly for the answer. Though they might not stick to the end. Some will swipe the video and move on to the next.
The patient will pause, squinting at the sunlight like a creature dragged from a cave. "I don't know... weird I guess?"
But then the tiktoker will continue talking to his invisible audience, never mentioning the patient again. Turning it into a soliloquy as he walks away.
The patient will walk to the next building where he will present his prescription to a lady behind the counter. She will hand him a box to place his phone, watch, glasses, and any electronic device. Then, he will receive a small cup of water and a red pill to swallow immediately. She will then escort him to a furnished room with a window overlooking a lake. For the next few weeks, he would have to come back to this room, put away all his electronic devices, and spend some time alone.
The prescription wasn’t for the pill, but for a dose of nothing: no screens, no alerts, no content. Just a room, a lake, and the unbearable weight of their own thoughts. The purpose of this exercise is not to have time alone, but to have time to think.
Every day, we get less and less time to ourselves for thinking.
Standing in line? Podcast. Driving? Podcast. Running? Podcast. Toilet break? Twitter. Boredom? TikTok. We’ve outsourced every idle moment to a screen, and erased the space between thoughts. There is not a single second left to think.
Eventually, the world will feel this crisis. And doctors will prescribe a note that will give us the permission to spend a moment alone.
By 2032, we won’t call it ‘thinking time.’ We’ll call it treatment. And no one will question why we need a doctor’s note to do what humans used to do by accident, every day. No one will ask why we traded boredom for burnout, or why a room with a window now costs more than a Netflix subscription.