Clarity

Now, every TED-talking guru, retired cricketer, and WhatsApp philosopher from the Himalayas to Silicon Valley will tell you the same thing: Unplug. Be present. Connect with your loved ones. Sounds poetic, doesn’t it? Like a weird Hallmark card.

Even my loud aunty. Born, I suspect, before the concept of time .. she preaches this wisdom while simultaneously forwarding 43 reels a day about turmeric’s role in saving marriages.

But I digress.

Recently, I decided to implement this hallowed advice myself. With a house full of teenage cousins whose natural habitat is a screen. Be it for gaming, doomscrolling, or just watching mukbang videos. I had the brilliant idea of spending two structured hour together.

No phones. No distractions. Just good, old-fashioned human interaction.

I expected resistance, of course. What I didn’t expect was a complete and total tactical ambush.

It was a Thursday evening. I was running low on serotonin, high on caffeine, and fresh off surviving yet another corporate minefield where words like synergy and milestone were thrown around like candy at a wedding.

With my sanity teetering like a rickshaw on a gravel road, Moment i reached home, I summoned the household.

“Family time!” I declared.

This was met with groans, eye-rolls, and the sound of someone’s AirPods being yanked out with the dramatic flair of a Netflix cliffhanger.

Movie night. That was the idea. Safe. Simple. Brain-dead entertainment.

I laid down the law like a benevolent dictator: No phones. No texting. No Candy Crush. No pretending to watch while actually scrolling through memes. They nodded. I felt like Gandhi. If Gandhi wore pyjamas and had back pain.

Ten minutes in, the cracks began to show.

One cousin was playing Words With Friends, which I believe is Scrabble for people who don’t like making eye contact. Another was sneakily checking his fantasy football team, probably trying to bench the emotional equivalent of me. My wife, God bless her, had her phone screen on dim mode, thinking I wouldn’t notice her swiping through what I suspect was either Candy Crush or covert Booking.com listings for 'that' family escape.

And me? I had the audacity to try and finish watching this random movie before it vanished into the Black Hole of Netflix Licensing. Hypocrisy, thy name is Joey.

Eventually, I snapped.

“Are you serious?! We agreed! Ten minutes and you’ve already defected to the Digital Republic of I Don’t Care!”

They stared at me like I was buffering. I entered what is now infamously referred to as "Joey’s Roaring Mode".. this rare phenomenon akin to a solar eclipse, only louder and more embarrassing.

I forced them .. yep, forced .. to put everything down and “watch the damn movie.” And they did. Bless their confused souls. Only problem was .. the movie, unforgivably terrible.

After a few painful scenes and a collective sigh that could've powered a wind turbine, I paused the film and said, “Forget it. Go back to whatever it was thatyou were doing”

Cue the existential stares.

One cousin, in her infinite teenage wisdom, asked, “Uncle, what do you actually want from us?” Good question. Nobel-worthy, really.

I said, “I just want us to do the same thing. Together. Like a family.”

My wife .. who is part Lady wisdom, part realist, and part Candy Crush leaderboard champion .. retired early to bed with a gentle, “I’m tired.” Which was code for: You’ve lost them, general. Retreat while you can.

Upstairs, I was preparing a whole Oscar-winning apology in my head. But my wife, the queen of common sense, simply said, “They were already connecting. You just didn’t see it. Maybe it’s your method, not their mindset.”

Now this hit me like that random passerby paan-spitting cha cha, unexpected and slightly humiliating.

So, I did the unimaginable. I listened.

Back down I went, tail between my legs, humility in hand.

“Sorry,” I said. “I love you guys. And I want to understand your world. Even if it gives me migraines.”

And what did these ungrateful little tech-goblins do?

They invited me to join their game.

There I was.... Uncle Joey .. Playing Monopoly till midnight, eating cold pizza, laughing till our stomachs hurt, and wondering why the hell I didn’t do this in the first place.

Moral of the story? Don’t confuse connection with control.

Teenagers, it turns out, are not emotionally dead creatures raised by Wi-Fi and sarcasm. They’re just living in a different format. You want to reach them? Speak their language. Even if it’s emojis, memes, and 4-second attention spans.

Now, whenever they visit, we have an “unplugged hour.” But it’s not forced. No schedule. No roaring. Just shared chaos.

In the end, I didn’t get them to leave their world. I was lucky enough to be invited in.

And that, dear friend, is the only kind of screen time that really matters.