October 28, 2026
More Interesting Than the Screen
By Quinn Dwyer
By Alisa Uchaykina
We are always waiting for something. Summer. The weekend. A new month. Monday, so we can finally start the things we’ve been putting off. While we wait, we scroll. One more video. One more notification. Another minute that stretches into an hour. We keep telling ourselves, “tomorrow.” But how many of those tomorrows quietly pass us by? Maybe the most memorable days aren’t the ones we plan for months in advance. They’re the ones when we stop waiting and forget to check our phones because life in front of us becomes more interesting than the screen in our hands. We don’t know how much time we have, but we do know that every moment spent truly living becomes a memory worth keeping. After all, if we were meant to wait forever, we would have grown roots instead of legs. In a previous article, “How the Morning Shapes the Mind,” I wrote about how the way we begin our mornings can shape the rest of our day. But maybe how we spend the hours that follow matters just as much.
I didn’t think much about this until one weekend after a twelve-hour community volleyball tournament, when I got reminded of what it feels like to be fully present. The tournament is held once a year, brings together around fifteen teams of different ages, with each team required to have at least two female players. With medals and a cash prize on the line, the competition lasts nearly the entire day.
Playing match after match against different teams throughout the day, we eventually found ourselves facing a young team from Chicago. At that point, they were just another opponent across the net.
By the end of the tournament, everyone was exhausted and hungry, so we decided to grab Korean BBQ together. Not everyone from the teams was able to join us, some went straight home. In the end, it was Sasha, Oleg, Vlad, and Bato from the Chicago team, along with my entire team and two of the players’ sisters, Dasha and Arina. It was the first time we had a chance to get to know each other off the court. No one was checking their phone notifications under the table. Somehow the conversations were enough. Over dinner, we discovered we were all around the same age and had far more in common than we expected.
As if the day wasn’t eventful enough, someone accidentally locked their car keys inside their car. What was supposed to be a quick trip home turned into nearly an hour of waiting for someone to unlock it. By the time we finally left, spending the next day together in New York felt like the obvious plan. The next day was the visiting team’s only full day here before heading back to Chicago. By the end of the night, it no longer felt like we had met just a few hours earlier.
The next day, our tour began in Central Park: four guys from the Chicago team, two sisters, and me.
The park was covered in greenery. Warm sunlight filtered through the trees, birds chirped overhead, and people passed by with smiles on their faces. It felt incredibly alive, filled with a quiet sense of happiness and calm. The boys looked around with curiosity, taking in the park’s famous landmarks while we chatted about nothing and everything.
None of us had a strict plan. Every destination led to another idea, another conversation, another joke. Instead of searching for entertainment on a screen, we kept finding it around us.
Our next destination was the world-famous Times Square. The peaceful atmosphere of Central Park was instantly replaced by crowded sidewalks, flashing billboards, and the constant noise of tourists. It was a completely different side of New York but just as much a part of the city. Ironically, one of the world’s most popular spots for photos and videos ended up being one of the places where we spent the least amount of time looking at our phones.
As Sasha Areltuev, a 20-year-old from Chicago said at some point, “A photograph can show the place or the people, but it can’t capture the emotions or how everyone felt in that moment.”
Slowly making our way through the crowds, we finally reached one of New York’s famous pizza places, Joe’s Pizza on Broadway. After spending hours walking around the city, it somehow tasted even better.
Our next stop was the East 34th Street Ferry Landing, where we caught the Rockaway Route. But before rushing there, we made one quick stop for ice cream.
The loud hum of the engine, the gentle rocking of the boat, and the cool wind rushing past us signaled that we were finally leaving the dock. Soon, the Manhattan skyline came into view, glowing with thousands of lights from office buildings and apartment windows. Everyone was talking, laughing, and admiring the view. No one reached for a phone to fill the silence because there wasn’t any silence to fill. For a while, nothing else seemed to matter. No one was thinking about school, work, or whatever was waiting for us the next day.
The ferry brought us to DUMBO, a neighborhood in Brooklyn beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. That’s when I came up with an idea.
“What if we launch lanterns on the beach?”
Everyone immediately agreed, so our next destination became Brighton Beach.
After crossing the bridge over Emmons Channel, we finally reached the beach. The sand was cold, the waves crashed against the shore, and the cool evening air had almost emptied the beach.
We ran along the shoreline, laughed at absolutely nothing, teased each other, and stayed long after we probably should have. It wasn’t the kind of fun you plan—it was the kind that simply happens when you’re surrounded by the right people.
Sixteen-year-old Oleg later mentioned that moment: “The moment I’ll remember the most is when we were all laughing over some random, silly situation and just having the best time. I think that’s what people are missing in life, to simply laugh with someone and feel alive.”
After awkwardly writing our wishes on the lanterns with a marker, we lit them one by one and watched them slowly rise into the night sky. Within minutes, tiny glowing lights floated above us, disappearing higher and higher into the darkness.
Eventually, it got late. It was time for us to go home, and time for the boys to pack before their trip back to Chicago.
Looking back, one thing surprises me more than anything else. The volleyball tournament lasted twelve hours. The next day we spent almost another twelve hours together walking around New York. That means that for almost twenty-four hours, I barely touched my phone. Not because I was trying to do a digital detox. Not because I forced myself to stay offline. I simply forgot it existed.
According to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey, 96% of U.S. teens use the internet every day, while nearly half say they are online almost constantly. A decade ago, that number was just 24%, showing how much screens have become a part of everyday life.
When I asked the others about their experience with their phones, they had noticed the same thing. Sasha said: “Honestly, I didn’t even think about my phone at the time because it was just interesting to talk and spend time together, especially when you’re with a new group of people. I think social media helps people stay connected, especially when they live far away from each other. But if all communication stays in your phone, then it probably gets in the way. Nothing can replace talking to someone in person.”
For Oleg, it was the feeling of simply being together: “The feeling of us having fun together, our vibe, the way we kept making plans about where to go next, and how we were running so we wouldn’t miss the subway. We had common interests, nobody was shy, everyone was open to meeting new people, and we just found the right people.”
This isn’t saying that phones are bad. It’s about showing what we might be missing when we spend our time watching other people have fun online instead of experiencing our own lives.
