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Watching TV, and other things your phone-addicted teenager would consider an intellectual pursuit

FOR today’s teenagers, activities once considered simple can be a mind-bending challenge. Such as these:

Watching a daytime cop drama

Stick on a TV programme designed for the lowest common denominator and it will blow their tiny two-minute attention span minds. Even the most expository sentence, such as ‘Hello brother I haven’t seen in six years’ is basically Proust when you’re used to inane influencer-speak.

Listening to the radio

Don’t underestimate the novelty of music that isn’t clipped into irritating, repetitive soundbites. Each song continues to the end and is paired luxuriously with other, sometimes unexpected, songs. The man reading out people’s tedious text messages is actually a curator of fine art and should be lauded for his services to culture. Unless they’re Scott Mills.

Going for a walk

Rawdogging nature or even just concrete suburbia takes on a semi-divine role when you do it without a phone. Imagine strolling without even a gruesome true crime podcast as an auditory comfort blanket. Today’s youth can barely comprehend such a delight, and would see it as the ultimate exercise of the mind.

Skimming a book

Sure, reading has always been the natural home of the pretentious, but for today’s teens even browsing books is participating in serious academia. Lazily walking through a Waterstones is basically like visiting the world’s most highbrow museum, and even the comic book they eventually choose is precious, non-scrollable content.

Looking through the fridge

Staring idly into the fridge used to be the original dissociating activity, but for teens whose brains have been fried by TikTok it’s now a much more mentally creative process. Looking through which sauces are still in date involves reading, cataloguing, and sorting. They might as well be Rachel Weisz in The Mummy, not that they’d get that brilliant reference.

Visiting the Post Office

For adults, this is rightfully considered a hellish ordeal. But for teens it gives them nostalgia for an era they never lived through, making a trip to the Post Office as exciting as an episode of Stranger Things. Their brains will also be tested as they try to figure out how it takes the person at the front of the queue so f**king long to simply post a letter.

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How to maturely hide from your colleague on your commute

SPOTTED a colleague on the train or bus? Commute ruined. Unless you follow this guide to hide from them in a mature way.

Check your phone

Oh dear god, according to the news there’s a rainstorm in Patagonia, this requires immediate attention. Stop, stare down at the screen, brow furrowed. Or check your stocks and shares. Never mind that you don’t have any, you could and they would require regular urgent attention. You’re just practising for that.

Take a call

Admittedly, your voice might attract the target’s attention, but sometimes a bold strategy is needed. Say either ‘Those numbers are unacceptable, Simon’ or ‘Dad, you’ve fallen?’ whilst walking purposefully away from your colleague. In the unlikely event that they follow you, get off at the next stop or hide in the toilet.

Inspect some building work

Angry letters to the council about potholes won’t have the required bite unless you know what you’re talking about. Go and stick your face close to that crater in the road. Take out a measuring tape if necessary. Or find a wall and start counting the bricks. Your dad’s right, things aren’t made as well today. If it’s a low wall, you can duck down behind it too.

Have an emergency shoe inspection

Bend down and make sure laces are tied, even if they’re slip-ons. You never know. Or just give them a good hard look to see how shiny they are, as if that’s something you’ve ever given a toss about before. You may become less invisible if someone trips over you, though.

Put on headphones

Now you’re wearing chunky noise-cancelling headphones, you can’t be seen. That’s a scientific fact. It’s like there’s a force field around you. No one can hear you or talk to you. If your colleague gestures at you to slip the headphones off, pretend to have no idea what they could possibly mean. Besides, that would be impossible, they are now welded to your ears.

Find a newspaper

Most newspapers on public transport are used by drunks as vomit receptacles, toilet paper or trousers. If you manage to find a clean one, don’t pretend to read it as that leaves you vulnerable to interruption. Instead, craft it into an impenetrable disguise by poking out a couple of eye holes and holding it over your face. For the finishing touch, keep it in place then run away.

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