Plug in. Tune out. I’m guessing most of us already know what I’m referring to. It’s early in the morning, or you have a lot of homework to complete, or you just don’t feel like interacting with people, so you pop in some headphones and drown out the rest of the world, your eyes unwavering from the glow of the screen.
I, myself, am guilty of this a lot of the time, sometimes even without headphones. I’ll be tired of a group conversation or feel like I don’t have a lot to contribute, so I’ll just withdraw into the digital world. I think this is viewed as perfectly fine behavior for the most part, but I wonder if it’s not doing us more harm than we think.
It’s getting to the point where if we are dining with someone, or socializing with them, we feel no obligation to actually engage them in conversation. Hours can be spent among friends, not talking, just scrolling through Facebook and occasionally tagging the friend sitting next to you in relatable memes. Phones provide a loophole in the social contract that we enter into when living with other humans, and because of this I think we lose out on certain conversation skills that are important for life. We lose the ability to listen even when we’re not interested, we lose the will to entertain conversations that take work, and we lose the skills necessary for navigating the awkwardness of life. We’re fine for most interactions, but when conversations get difficult, we just opt out.
Society evolves, and that’s a weird and sad and wonderful process. But in this particular case, I feel like we might be losing something really important. Before the advent of cellphones that could entertain us for hours, there weren’t many situations where one person could detach themselves from participating in the group without the others trying to pull them back in. Sure, there were kids who were quieter and times when a bunch of friends would all read books together and disappear into their own worlds, but in most conversations, if someone wasn’t participating, it wasn’t seen as a normal, healthy thing. They were confronted and forced to interact, and if they wanted to avoid this, they would have to physically leave the situation.
Now, there is a world of escape in our pockets at every moment of the day. If at any time we feel uncomfortable, bored, or just lazy, we can plug in our headphones and escape into our own world. This can be a good thing, helpful for focus and getting work done, but I think it might lend itself to a nasty habit of not being present. The imagined world is always more desirable than the real one, in fiction and on social media. This habit of tuning out can become a crutch, where anytime a situation is difficult or uncomfortable, we escape it instead of trying to learn to deal with it. And difficult and uncomfortable situations are the ones that we most need to learn how to deal with. They turn us into less difficult and more comfortable people.
I know that cell phones can be really useful, and this escapism can help people deal with certain anxieties and difficulties. But I don’t want us to miss out on relationships and conversations because they’re just bored and on their phones. Being present in the real world is way too important.
