Just Because We Can Doesn’t Mean We Should

Substack Newsletter April 1, 2025

When my son was in high school, going to Wasabi’s was our thing. A conveyor belt sushi restaurant at the Natick Mall on the outskirts of Boston. It was a novel place at the time. The moving sushi part. The human part was becoming something outdated. Humans seated us or took our names if we needed to wait; stood in the open-air kitchen located in the center of the space surrounded by a giant conveyor belt where they placed their freshly prepared sushi. The belt curved for days at a leisurely pace past seated customers over a large, open space. You picked what you wanted from the belt. Color coded plates indicated price. We laughed over whose stack of plates was bigger. Traded choices. Had great conversation. A human took drink orders. And special orders. Delivered both by hand. Counted up the plates at the end and brought a check. It was fun until Wasabi’s closed during the pandemic and never reopened.

What has opened is a different conveyor belt sushi restaurant near the same Natick Mall. On Saturday, I ventured from my now rural existence in Western, MA back to the familiar, and believe it or not, comforting mass of bumper-to-bumper weekend shopping traffic along Route 9 (if you can shop there, it exists there). I met up with my now 23-year-old son to relive our sushi memories and create some new, and turns out, computerized ones.

This “Revolving Sushi Bar” is a fraction of the size of Wasabi’s. Maybe 15 tables. Loud, consistently full. An endless line of folks waiting and hovering to be seated. It’s the reverse of Wasabi’s. Almost everything happens by computer. You check-in via computer. The screen gives you a wait time (50 minutes!?). Tells you to go outside (no space inside to wait) or go shopping (it’s conveniently located at Shopper’s World). A link arrives via text so you can check your reservation. Another text tells you when to halt your shopping to come back and eat. You check-in with a human and their tablet. They seat you. Then you’re on your own.

First, I went old school. I watched the sushi go by on the conveyor belt to my right. It moved so fast that by the time I read the label and thought about whether or not I wanted the thing, it was gone. There was an empty conveyor belt above it. A 2-story sushi situation?

My son, unfazed by the noise and speed, went right to the computer screen. “Mom, you can just order what you want from here.” He ordered water. And sushi.

“Wait, what?” I scanned the scene. “Why is there no sushi on that top conveyor belt?”

“They deliver the sushi there.”

“Who does? I don’t get it.” I was trying to figure out the situation when suddenly a robot, yes robot, arrived at our table with 2 glasses of water and 2 straws.

“Mom, grab your water,” my son said grabbing his.

I looked left and was so startled by the yellow and blue R2D2-like machine that I couldn’t move. A man, illegally waiting inside, grabbed my water for me just as the robot took off. “You have to move fast,” he laughed. It wasn’t funny. More like traumatizing.

“Mom, just order off the screen,” my son said.

“Okay. Okay. Does a robot bring it?” I heard a loud swoosh and watched a plate of crispy California rolls whiz by on the top conveyor belt and stop at our table. My son reached up and took it.

“You’re kidding?” I said. “How does it know where to stop?”

“Mom, here, just order something.” He opened the computer screen, again, to the sushi menu. Meanwhile, I watched the cutest dessert I have ever seen whiz by and stop 4 tables down. Then another whirred to a stop by the table adjacent to ours.

“We have to get one of those,” I said. “It’s so cute!” My son shook his head, ordered fast and furious off the computer screen like those born in the smart phone era do. I wanted to order but I was too distracted watching the top-tier sushi whiz by and stop at exactly the right place. I couldn’t focus. My son grabbed something from the lower (read loser) conveyor belt that I now believe is for the 40 and over crowd, so I wouldn’t starve.

“Here, Mom. You like this,” he smiled. Like he was helping someone who had an analog phone. (I don’t.) The competitor in me lit up. I stopped trying to understand this ridiculous experience and joined the game. The sushi menu was only photos and a title. No one to ask about hidden ingredients. It was sushi roulette. I ordered. The food slid to me via the upper conveyor belt. I ate. Survived. Ordered again — like a true Gen Z. Was finally able to have some conversation with my son except there was too much distraction to create any flow. I don’t remember how anything tasted.

I slid the empty plates into a slot and the base of our tabletop and watched the computer add up our bill. My son opened his phone and used ApplePay. We left without ordering the cute fish dessert. Or speaking to anyone. Mission accomplished. I won at sushi. We were no longer hungry. But I was far from satisfied. I felt exhausted.

It was interesting to see all the automation (except the terrifying robot) and yes, cool that somehow your order knows to stop at your table. But I missed human interaction. Connection. Even with my son who was sitting across from me. The sushi special was the anxiety-roll. That’s all I consumed.

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The difference in these 2 sushi experiences is similar to what’s happening for kids in childhood. A little screen time (Wasabi’s) vs. too much (the reverse experience at the new place) and the anxiety that follows. The lack of nourishment. The disconnection. The mental and physical health effects.

There’s so much research now on the negative effects of excessive screen time on physical and mental health—for teens and kids, as well as adults. Those include things like increased depression and anxiety, disrupted sleep patterns, hypertension, increased stress hormones, developmental delays in children and teens, and the altering of brain chemistry. So the question I have is this: do we really need to add more screen time, more apps, more human disconnection into our lives just because we can? I’d say no. And no, no, no.

When I began teaching mindfulness tools to kids and adults, I never thought I’d be asked to present a four-part professional development series to a local K-8 teaching staff on managing student anxiety in the classroom. There are some unprecedented reasons why. The pandemic is over but its effects on children go on. Adults are stressed living in a political system that is daily destroying institutional foundations designed to support us and make life easier. Kids pick up on that stress, too. There is too much screen time happening for everyone. It’s extremely detrimental to children and teens. The science is there. And okay, it’s not easy to change. And it’s the difference between choosing to eat a box of cookies every day, all day, all night, or not. It’s a choice.

You don’t have to chose the box of cookies. Or anxiety-sushi. We don’t have to serve them to our kids. There are other options. Not on an app. It’s simple to choose less screen time. And maybe easier than you think.

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.