It Really Is That Damn Phone

I was in Bali recently, sitting at a sunset bar, when I felt that familiar frustration bubble up again.

The sky was unreal. Orange bleeding into pink, the sea completely still, Mount Agung watching over everything.

(The view from the bar)

And almost everyone in front of it was staring down at their phones.

The couple beside me barely spoke. Then they hit record and suddenly they were animated, laughing, clinking glasses, being all lovey-dovey. The second the video stopped, so did the performance. Back to scrolling.

A few tables down, kids sat with iPads propped against their drinks. The sun disappeared. Their food arrived. They didn’t look up once.

I remember thinking, here we go again.

I’ve written before about bed rotting and how easily scrolling disguises itself as rest. I clearly have a thing about this topic, but it’s because I keep seeing the same pattern, in myself and in people around me.

Why is Everyone so Tired?

Lately, I’ve had multiple friends tell me they’re exhausted.

Constantly drained, like something is always pressing on their chest.

So I ask what time they went to bed.

“Four.”

I assume they were out.

No. They were in bed. On their phone.

And I’m not innocent in this either. I’m notoriously bad for it. Once something grabs my attention, I’ll go down a rabbit hole for hours. A couple of weeks ago I did exactly that, two or three hours deep into something heavy, and by the end of it I felt defeated and tired.

And that’s the thing.

It’s not just mindless scrolling or lifestyle content that keeps us up.

It’s the constant stream of negativity. Political tension. Cost of living panic. Threads about how dating is broken. How our generation is doomed. How everything is harder now.

I’m fully aware of the cost of living crisis and the very real issues happening globally. I’m not advocating for denial. As someone who has studied politics, I care deeply about staying informed.

But I’ve realised there’s a difference between being informed and being endlessly exposed.

A difference between intentionally reading the news and passively absorbing conflict at midnight.

Between understanding real problems and carrying the emotional weight of everyone else’s cynicism.

If you’re flooding your brain until 4am, money content, fitness content, relationship content, global crisis, cultural pessimism, your nervous system isn’t resting.

It’s processing.

Then we wake up tired, anxious and feeling behind.

Behind who?

That’s the question.

The Stresses of Your 20’s

I saw something recently that said nothing stresses people in their twenties more than the feeling that they’re running out of time.

Not on Forbes 30 Under 30.
Not saving enough money.
Not travelled enough countries.
Not a homeowner.

And the more you scroll, the more urgent it feels.

We’re comparing ourselves to the 1%. Or to people selling something.

Bali is full of it. “Buy my course.” “Work online from paradise.” “We’re looking for girls who want to live abroad and earn hundreds a day.” I’ve clicked on those before. Living abroad and earning online? That’s been my dream for years.

But when you actually speak to people living there, you hear a different story. Some of the loudest “coaches” are running on savings. Some are broke.

Yet online, it looks effortless.

Working by the pool with an acai bowl on the table.

So you lie in bed at 1:42am thinking you’re behind in a race that was never realistic to begin with.

The Forgotten Dream

Last week I was living the kind of life I used to daydream about.

Driving around an island dodging monkeys stealing food off the road. Six-year-olds on scooters taking themselves to school, screaming hello as they passed. Driving barefoot in a bikini to a dive site, hopping back on the bike after, salt drying in my hair on the ride home.

I grew up watching shows like Deadly 60 and Our Planet. Rainforests, oceans, adventure.

And there I was.

Actually doing it.

I didn’t record any of it.

I was just there.

Later that week I wrote in my diary (and if you look at the photo below, you’ll understand why):

“I am sat in the best journalling spot right now and I hope future me reading this back will remember the feeling of being sat on the rooftop at Lili Hostel, writing and reading, looking out at the volcano, rice fields and palm trees.”

Reading that back, what stands out isn’t the volcano or the rice fields.

It’s the feeling.

I was content.

And that’s when it clicked.

Somewhere along the way, I’d started measuring myself against timelines and tangible goals.

But when I was younger, before I had a phone telling me what mattered, I had one dream.

To explore.

I expect a lot from myself of course.

But I don’t want to forget what I’m actually working toward.

The reason I want the adventure isn’t because it looks good.

It’s because of that feeling.

The one on the rooftop.
The one underwater when everything goes quiet.

That’s the standard.

Not how it looks.
How it feels.

It will look different for everyone.

But it has nothing to do with how it looks on a screen.

The Boring Secret

People always say that whenever they see me I’ve got a smile on my face.

That I’m bouncing around, talking to everyone, getting to know people, fully enjoying a night out.

They call me crazy. Say I’ve got too much energy. Ask how I do it.

And the truth is, since being in Vietnam, I am genuinely happy.

Not in a ‘everything is perfect’ way. I still get frustrated and annoyed. But sadness? Rare. Most days I wake up grateful and excited.

And a big part of that is how I live.

If I’m not out until 6am, I’m up at 6am heading to the gym.

I’m asleep by 10. I move my body. I eat well. I put my phone down and read a book.

That’s it.

And this isn’t me saying my way is better than anyone else’s. I’m not above it. I’ve had phases where I’ve scrolled until 2am and felt awful the next day.

We talk about burnout like it’s this mysterious modern illness. We talk about anxiety like it appeared out of nowhere. We talk about feeling behind like it’s a personality flaw.

But maybe part of it is simple.

If the last thing we see at night and the first thing we see in the morning is a curated feed of extremes, our brains never really switch off.

Watching that sunset in Amed made it obvious.

The moment was there.

Most people weren’t.

It’s not our generation being weak.

It really is that damn phone.

With Love From Saigon,

Anaïs

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