All in the palm of your hand...

I am sure that people have written PHD’s on this subject, and I just have a personal take on it all. It’s the phone thing, the self-focused phone thing that takes normal people away from us and puts them in some zone from which they do not return very quickly.

I had an experience last week at a dinner, which left me with the realization that we have all gone somewhere else. Sitting around in a pre-dinner mood, having drinks and snacks with a group of six people, in conversation, I began to notice that we were losing group members gradually, until there were just two of us. However, unlike the same activity in the past, no one had walked away; they just drifted into their hands. Their focus was all phones!

I admit I have a cell phone and apps galore, and with the help of reading glasses I can get lost as well, but I don’t rely on my phone for life experiences. I do look up things if need be but not unless it’s called for. I don’t use it for email so I don’t worry about that part of my life, although texts seem to play as large a part in some lives anyway.

People seem to dive into their palms and not return. The focus just shifts into the magic of dreamland or somewhere. I know I can do the same with a computer, but never have the chance to sit in a group full of people with computers.

I see this of course in Doctors waiting rooms and airport lounges, but sitting down at a dinner party crosses that line. Toilet texting is probably a game as well, and the first time I knowingly received email from a toilet I did laugh.

There needs to be a solution. Human interpersonal skills are bad enough without this distraction but now we can all just sit and stare. Whole wards in institutions used to be full of people sitting and talking into their hands.

We used to see and hear people walking down the street talking to themselves and we thought they were crazy and now we believe they’re talking on a phone.

Look up and see me! “Tommy can you see me……….”