"[T]echnology's just gonna get better and better and it's just going to get easier and easier and more and more convenient and more and more pleasurable to sit alone, with images on a screen given to us by people who do not love us, but want our money. And that's fine, in low doses. But if it's the basic main staple of your diet, you're going to die. In a very meaningful way, you're going to die.”
- actor Jason Segal portraying the writer David Foster Wallace in the film "The End of the Tour."
Technology is advertised as a way to keep our world interconnected like never before. It can create globalization the likes of which we have never seen. When used in the correct way, technology can keep people close even when they live on opposite sides of the world. However, our world is developing a very serious impediment. I used to say it was just our generation, but it is our parents generation and the one in between too. We spend so much time with our head down staring at an illuminated screen that we fail to actually connect with the people sitting right next to us.
The other week, I had several close friends over to my apartment to watch the Baylor game (and trick them into watching the Democratic debate at halftime). During the game, there was a point when I got up to get myself a drink, and I asked the room if anyone else wanted anything, but my inquiry solicited no responses. Everyone was silent. I turned around to see that every single person in the room was looking at their phone. I stood there for a moment, thinking how ludicrous it is that we can be surrounded by real human beings, people we are close to, yet with the simple swish of a finger we can unlock a smartphone and be a million miles away.
Last week I had one of my close friends, who I had not seen in several weeks, over to catch up. I had been looking forward to the rendezvous the entire day. When they got there, we only talked for maybe five minutes before they pulled out their computer and started responding to emails.
I used to wait tables at a local restaurant. I remember the people that bothered me the most were the families who were dining out together, and during the entire outing they did not talk to each other. The dad was sending work emails, the mom was texting, the daughter was scrolling through Instagram, and the worst was the young son, who is watching television on an iPad with headphones on in the middle of dinner. When did this become acceptable? If my mother was still around, she would slap me upside the head and knock those headphones right off my ears.
When people ask me what my biggest pet peeve is, what really bothers me the most, it is when I am spending time with a person and they are on their phone (or any other device). I am not one who is easily bothered or annoyed, and I am not one who demands constant attention or interaction, but it sickens me that we can be sitting right next to someone, and the whole time we are texting someone else. Or maybe it is not even texting, sometimes we are sacrificing quality time with people so we can scroll through Instagram or Facebook to see what everyone else is doing, instead of focusing on what we are doing.
Now when someone pulls out their phone and starts texting when they are spending time with me, I say, “Hey, does that person want to come hang out? Or do you want to go hang out with them, because if we are not going to talk you can go home and look at your phone.” Or something similar. I just cannot stand it and sometimes I come off as rude, but I do not apologize. We have got to realize that we are wasting so much valuable time and so many valuable relationships just so we can respond to texts or look at social media posts.
Recently, I was away from Norman for two months, and anyone who has been lucky enough to study abroad or have an internship in another place knows what it is like to be away like this. We know that during these times, technology can be great. I got to FaceTime, talk on the phone, and text my friends and family who were back in Oklahoma. It was fantastic to be able to still connect with them and not feel isolated. This is one example of how technology can work in our favor when we use it correctly.
The real problem with technology is that Apple and Microsoft and all these tech companies keep creating ways to make it more tolerable for us to be alone. Having a phone makes it easier to just sit in a room by yourself and feel like you are not isolated. We do not make an effort to go see people when we could just lay in bed and watch Netflix. This entertainment that the phone or computer gives us is just making us less and less dependent on each other, on human interaction, to deal with loneliness. We get pleasure from these devices, but it is a temporary and more importantly superficial pleasure. I advise that you really make an effort to use your phone or computer only when necessary, and make a greater effort to spend time with people in person, face to face. So although it is against my better judgment, because you reading my articles is going to one day put food on my table, for now I want you to finish reading this and get off your phone, iPad, or computer, and go spend time with a real person instead.
