10,000 Hours
I'm proud to announce that as of this year I've become a world-class expert at chewing.
I'm proud to announce that as of this year I've become a world-class expert at chewing.
Popular smartphone operating systems automatically record the amount of time the user spends using their phone, broken down by time spent in each app. This feature is supposed to allow users to analyze their own habits. On iOS, this feature is called Screen Time. On Android, it is called Digital Wellbeing. Such analyses are typically presented to show users how much time they spend on their devices, with the implication that they should spend less time on screens. Accordingly, higher amounts of time on a device can give feelings of guilt and unhappiness.
This comic inverts the idea by referencing "the 10,000 hours thing". This is a (somewhat dismissive) reference to the notion that at least 10,000 hours of practice are required to become an expert in any given field. This notion was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in the book "Outliers", and has frequently been misunderstood to imply that anyone who practices anything for 10,000 hours will become an expert.
In this comic, Cueball's phone tells him that, assuming that the 10,000-hour idea is correct, he is now an expert, implying that he's spent 10,000 cumulative hours on his phone. The 10,000-hour refrain usually pertains to skill-based tasks, such as arts or athletics. Spending time on one's phone requires almost no skill, and it's unlikely that he spent all, or even most of that time focused on a particular set of skills. The joke is that Cueball has spent a huge amount of time on largely frivolous activities, and has now become a "world-class expert" in browsing, playing and texting on his phone.
Randall often pokes fun at his extensive screen time, such as in 2223: Screen Time.
The title text refers to the fact that people eat a lot, 1-2 hours a day, though not all of this time is spent chewing. At the time of this comic's publication, Randall was just over 36 years old (13,151 days), so he has spent a large amount of time eating, well over 10,000 hours. It could also be a reference to the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes (which has been referenced before), in which Calvin refers to routines he has created to improve at chewing.