Three hours and forty-two minutes.

That's the average, apparently. Three hours and 42 minutes of free time in a British day — the stretch after the work stops, the bit that's supposed to be ours. When I first read the figure I felt briefly cheated, as if someone had short-changed me. Then I thought about my own evening off and realised it was about right.

Here's the part that stayed with me, though. Of those three and three-quarter hours, more than two go to a screen — the telly, the feed, the thing already glowing when you sit down (ONS). I don't say that to scold. I'm the worst offender I know; I reach for it before I've decided to. It asks nothing of me, which on a tired evening is precisely the appeal.

But it's worth seeing plainly. When we picture the free time the machines might give us — the day off, the lighter week — we picture something expansive. The measured version is narrower and quieter, and it mostly flickers.

So the small experiment, gentle as ever: tonight, when the hour that's yours arrives and you reach for the screen, don't fight it. Just clock what you reached past to get there. The book, the window, the person in the next room. You don't have to choose them. Only notice they were there.