Stop Trying to Be Somewhere Else

Disclaimer:  I do not own a cell phone of any kind.  This does make me biased, but it also makes me an observer of what is happening in a way others are not.  Read on with that knowledge in mind.

Is your phone in your pocket?  Your purse?  Facedown on a table in front of you?   In your hand?

We all know the typical story used in posts like these.  The family that is out to dinner and not talking to each other because they are all on their phones.  Because this example gets used so often, I think we may have deceived ourselves into thinking that is the only example.  Yet, if you put your phone down a look around, you will find that no place or activity is immune. 

- In my job as a yearbook photographer, I attend a lot of sporting events.  No matter how exciting the game is, there are always a number of people texting someone who is not there. 
- At camp, adults aren't allowed to have their phones out around the kids, but the second the kids aren't there, every adult is scrolling through their social media.
- I was recently in a prayer meeting where a phone buzzed, and the person picked it up to check the message.  That means they interrupted their conversation with the Lord to check a message that would still be there when the meeting ended five minutes later.
- I am constantly distracted by the people in front of me at church.  No, they are not taking notes.  They are not on their Bible app.  They are texting someone who is in another church to decide where they will meet for lunch.
- Last Sunday, my mom and I went to see Tony Bennett in concert.  It's safe to say that, at age 43, I was the youngest person there.  As we got settled in and waited for the show to start, I looked around and saw EVERYONE scrolling through a phone and texting.  I nudged my mom and said, "For all the smack people talk about teenagers, look around this room.  These people ought to know better."  When the lights went down, the person next to my mom, unaware of how to set her phone in dark mode, continued to text for five more minutes.  These people had paid good money to attend a concert (which they are unlikely to get the opportunity to see again because Tony Bennett is 93) and were spending their time communicating with someone who had not laid down their money to be there.

What disturbs me about this phenomenon, aside from it being what old sci-fi movies predicted when they showed people wandering the streets in a disinterested fog, is that we now believe it is normal to split your mind in an attempt to be in two places at once.  But here is what we know about the human brain; it cannot do that.  Your mind is not capable of attending to two things at the same time.  That means that, while you are texting or scrolling, you are no longer mentally present at the ball game, camp, prayer meeting, church service, or concert.  You are sacrificing being where you are in order to be somewhere else.

Please understand, I am not trying to discount the good that can come from a dad on a business trip who can talk to their kids over facetime or the ability to do business with someone at a distance.  My favorite thing that has ever come from our school's technology initiative was when we live-streamed a basketball tournament and sent the link to the athletic director of the other team.  We happened to be playing a school with a large number of kids whose parents were in the military and, because of the technology, were able to watch their sons play basketball from Iraq and Afghanistan (I didn't even mind that we lost that game). 

The difference between those moments and the ones I find disturbing is that those are moments when the place far away is the better place to attend to, and you step away from where you are on purpose to fully attend to that conversation.  The day to day problem is that we are never where we physically are or where we are trying to be instead.  By trying to be everywhere, we are nowhere. 

The science is clear.  This way of life is physically changing our brains.  It is increasing anxiety, depression, and disconnectedness in everyone, especially our kids.  We convince ourselves that we are in control (even though we know, deep down, that we are not).  We tell others that we don't do it that much (I actually had someone tell me that once while having a text conversation with someone else).  When someone attempts to point out the problem, the response is usually one of anger.  These are all signs of addiction, and we are allowing it to continue in the name of convenience.