Have you ever been in the middle of a deep conversation and the person you’re talking to pulls out their phone? It kills the conversation. 

In our world, today, we’re more worried about our friends on Facebook than the friends around us. We’re all so caught up in what’s popular and what’s cool. Do we even know what that is? We need likes on our status, and more followers on Twitter. That’s how we know we’re popular, we’re liked, #Besties4Life. Facebook shows the world how many friends we have, just in case they questioned how popular we actually are.

When we try to engage in any real conversation, our phones make sure to take us back, #NeverPutItDown, because a real conversation with another human being just isn’t what we do anymore. We’d rather take a selfie to capture the moment, than be present in it, #PicturesWorthAThousandWords. The thing is, we can’t come up with those thousand words. Our limit is 140 characters. Unless, of course, it’s on Facebook. Then we can write a novel about our tales of woe, #ShakespeareReference.

Imagine just for a moment, what life would be like without our smartphones and social media. No text interrupting a speech. No call ruining the romance. No drama based off your subtweet that you probably shouldn’t have posted, #BeenThere. No Facebook or Netflix to eat up your time when you should be doing homework, #MyLife. But that’s not the world we live in. We all binge watch seasons on Netflix, because we know how to prioritize, #ButReally.

I’m not saying we should rid the world of technology and social media and live in the 1900s, #LetsBeReal. I’m saying, maybe we should reevaluate what we give so much meaning to. A thousand friends on Facebook, but who’s there when you call? So, how important are our Facebook friends? #Hint, they’re not.

Do you remember that really intense conversation you had? I’m assuming we’ve all had at least one. We don’t give ourselves many opportunities to have those conversations. We may not know much about the people we call our best friends; sometimes we don’t know anything more than their Starbucks order #PrettyImportantThough. 

Don’t you want to know their passions and dreams, and all about their lives? Shouldn’t that be what we value as important? #People -- actual people who are all around us every day, not the Instagram picture that is now over 50 likes. Our picture of importance has been so distorted; we value shallow surface level ideas. We want to be seen as popular and cool, so we push away the deep and intelligent. We don’t want to be questioned; we don’t want to doubt #SucksToSuck. 

There are people all around us who would push us to be better people, to think and help us grow. We just have to put down our phones long enough and open ourselves up just enough to give someone the opportunity to show us we're not #popular. We’re #people.