Follow along on Ryan’s journey away from screens, as he shares his story about breaking free from the digital world, rediscovering the joys of living in the present, and cultivating meaningful connections in a world consumed by technology. If you’re ready to reclaim your life from the grip of screens, his story offers insights and inspiration to embark on your journey to build more self-control.

Gaming: A Progression

I’m a 90’s kid. I grew up in an ever-changing technological landscape where the message has pretty much always been that screens are your friend. Technological advancement was indicative of the screen-to-non-screen ratio of any given product. If it had a screen, it got bigger.  If it didn’t have a screen, it got one. Nothing was safe.

And I LOVED it.

As a 90’s kid, I also experienced the lightning-fast evolution of the gaming industry. I wasn’t at ground zero when it came to video games, but my early childhood was defined by one of the most revolutionary pieces of gaming technology to date: The Nintendo 64. The Legend of Zelda, Goldeneye, Banjo Kazooie, Super Mario 64, Mario Kart, all the rest of the Mario games, and, of course, Super Smash Brothers. I lived and breathed for these little cartridges and the code written within them. The gaming spark was lit and that flame would burn for a long time.

As I grew up the next natural step for me was the Nintendo Gamecube (in addition to my upgraded GameBoys, of course). I had friends that were Playstation households and others that were Xbox households, so even if my gaming selection was limited at home I always had somewhere to go and something new to play. By the time I got to college I discovered downloadable emulators on the PC and free-to-play games which gave me an essentially unlimited arsenal of games at no cost… or so I thought.

The Cost

My devotion to gaming may have not cost dollars and cents, but I did pay the price in the wasting away of my soul. The games that I chose to indulge in were (mostly) harmless. By this I mean there was nothing explicitly egregious about their content that would have influenced me in a life-altering way. What it did do, however, was fuel an addiction to screens themselves. In my mind that’s where comfort, peace, hope, and joy were all found. I had trained my brain to believe when life got difficult the power button would make all my troubles go away.

The side-effects of this were seen in what else I used those screens for. The phone on which I played an ‘innocent’ game of Flappy Bird became the source of a social media obsession that culminated in an identity crisis where I tried to be a certain type of personality online. The television where I played a ‘harmless’ game of Animal Crossing became the medium through which I allowed an ever-aggressive cable news program to enter my home that developed an angry and judgmental personality. The computer on which I indulged in ‘childish’ games of the past on my emulators became the tool that fueled a foray into the world of pornography whenever I felt even the slightest bit lonely.

I didn’t like the person I had become, and I wasn’t even sure how I got there.

Conviction

Eventually, I gritted my teeth and made a conscious decision to change. I wasn’t going to find my identity in social media anymore, even though I still wanted to. I wasn’t going to watch the “news” anymore, even though I still wanted to. And I DEFINITELY wasn’t going to watch porn anymore, even though I DEFINITELY still wanted to. But what about the games? No, those were fine, right?

Fast forward. I’m in my 30’s, married, with a newborn baby. I work for a campus ministry where I spend my days telling college students how much God loves them. My days are long and I’m usually pretty exhausted by the time the sun goes down. When everyone else in the house was sound asleep (usually around 9pm) that’s when I would pull the laptop out and log into whatever virtual world I was into at the moment and would stay on well into the AM hours. Rinse. Repeat.

One Monday night in the Spring of 2023, Ian McCready shared his testimony and delivered the selfctrl message to the college students whom I serve. I realized that I, too, had my video games as an idol in my life. I knew this world didn’t offer rest, peace, and comfort, but instead of turning to God I had been turning to the virtual world. 

Committing to Change

In response to the conviction, I pledged to go 40 days without video games.

What I did not tell myself was I would be going 40 days without TV, YouTube, or any kind of screen-centric entertainment. What I noticed was that the less of myself I gave to the games, the less I wanted to engage with other screens. Instead, I would read more books. There was even one day when, for the first time in my life, I read an entire book in a single day. By the end of that 40-day trial, my desire to game wasn’t completely gone, but my desire to watch TV was greatly reduced and I completely stopped using both Twitter (before it became X) and Facebook.

Staying Vigilant

The desire to game has resurfaced from time to time and on at least one occasion I have indulged. What I would tell myself is, “I’ll get it all out of my system,” but what I’ve noticed is that the exact opposite occurs. When I think I’m getting it out, I’m actually letting more and more in, and that snowball can get big quickly. I’ve found that the snowball usually falls apart when I start prioritizing my time and attention back to my community including my family, my friends, my church, and my God.

Ryan