I have such a terrible relationship with my phone. I love being able to pick up my little box and find out: "how much money does it cost to use a song in a movie?" (the answer is "up to $60,000". by the way, which is absurd). I love having absolutely no idea how to get somewhere and just allowing my phone to be my guide. I love being able to capture any moment without thought. But I hate how it functions to replace conversation. My anxieties and insecurities cannot withstand the lack of tone, mannerisms, deliverance, and quality. An average conversation with a friend who I've been close with for years can in a moment make me feel as though they've decided they hate me. They've grown tired of me and my act has gotten old. And there's no one to talk me down from that place. It very well could be true - or maybe I'm expanding on the smallest grammatical choice they made because I'm an over-analyzer. This is likely the case nine times out of ten, yet I'll never know for sure, because only an unhinged person would ask if everything was okay every time they felt unsure of the tone of a text. But that’s where this kind of conversing has led me.
I think texting and instant messaging apps have drastically decreased the quality of my conversations and in some cases my relationships. I'm confident that a lot of people do not feel this same way or at least as frequently as I do; that they simply see the ease and convenience of text messages. My irrational thoughts in regard to my phone are likely the result of growing up at the same time that social media and technology started becoming a powerhouse and gaining permanence rather than being just a fad. That in combination with an overactive, people-pleasing mind so please bear with any irrationalities in the rest of this.
Not only does pushing buttons on a screen and receiving digital words from friends make me anxious, it lacks clarity (outside of my irrational fears). I don't get to understand how you feel about what you're saying to me. A simple sentence which appears sloppy and unthoughtful might have been delivered pleasantly and with gusto in person - but I'll never know. Unless you're typing in all capitals or using many exclamation marks - and even then, that only feels like excitement to me. That's another thing. You might think using all lowercase with no punctuation feels gentle and easy, but maybe it looks careless or sad or disinterested to the person receiving your messages. We all have different perceptions of what a 'normal' text looks like, or what a flirtatious text looks like, or a cry for help, or a kind and nurturing one. Text messages do not allow the kind of depth we need to fully understand a person, unless your recipient is bluntly honest and forward all of the time.
You can learn a lot about someone and what they're truly feeling just by watching them during conversation. Are they speaking intensely, are they making eye contact, or looking away? Are they taking pauses to collect themselves or are they rushing through the dialogue? Are their "mhm"'s genuinely confirming your experiences and thoughts or are they merely an acknowledgement that you're speaking but they aren't interested? Body language is everything. Think back to a time you were interested in someone romantically. Maybe you were on a first date or maybe you were at a party and they were completely unaware that your pulse quickened when they were near. Whatever the case may be, I guarantee you were acutely cognizant of this person's movements. At the beginning of the evening they sit a normal distance away, but as the hours passed you noticed the space between you grow smaller. They look mostly away from you while they speak, but when you talk, they can't stop looking right at you. At your eyes when you smile, your lips when your sentences weave together like lines from a Fitzgerald novel. You notice what they notice. Whether you speak for hours or only minutes, it's clear how someone is feeling if you know what to look for. By the end of the date, or party, it's likely you knew how they felt about you. But when you send a message, to anyone for any reason, there's a lack of dimension to the letters on a screen.
There's also nothing to risk when you're behind that screen. Maybe you and a friend left each other passive aggressively earlier in the day. Well now that you're sitting during your lunch break unable to think about anything else, you take out your phone and start tapping away. You get out everything you're thinking, even the harshest thoughts and your small text becomes an entire monologue. You hit send. You had unlimited time to re-read and change what you wrote if it wasn't clear enough. There was no give-and-take like a real in-person conversation because she has no idea this message is pinging to the nearest cell tower and in a matter of seconds will appear in one lump sum on her phone. She also has no time to prepare. She's blindsided and hurt. But it was so easy to indulge in impulsivity because you can't sense after your first couple of sentences that she's beyond upset and regretful of whatever you'd been fighting about before. So you kept typing and typing until you exposed every flaw about her. Sure, this is a worst-case scenario kind of example (with sort of a terrible friend, please don't be this lady) but I'm trying to make a point. Since this form of communication allows its users to be impulsive it also allows thoughtless words and careless actions. Because the biggest "action" being taken is tapping a button on a screen. It's almost intangible, it takes no planning, no revisions of consequence. There's no need to be careful. Just fix the typo with an asterisk in another message - or don't, they'll figure it out. If you've ever tried to say something that was terrifying to say to another person out loud, you know it can feel as though there's a gate in your vocal chords that's locked up tight and the key to open it has gone missing. Then when you finally do speak - if you finally do - it feels as though you're gagging the words right up and out of your throat. But silently typing that same hard thing is lightyears easier because it doesn't feel real. It feels unattached to you - just a jumble of text flying through space to a recipient. Some aspect of identity seems to get lost in this communication.
Why are we so accustomed to shallow conversations now? When did we decide that convenience triumphed quality and connection? Written words can seem flat and lack any sort of feeling. Which is the same reason not everyone can write a book or a script. It takes a lot of time and skill and editing and thoughtfulness to write and have your audience feel what you mean. And even then, many people may still not understand why what you're saying is meaningful, which is why even books on the bestsellers list still have bad reviews. Texting is the lazy version of prose and doesn't take long to rear its ugly head whether or not it was intentional. All this is not to say that I am quitting this addictive nicotine, because so many of my relationships are distant and if I never indulged in a text message I would rarely hear from those people. What I'm trying to say is, texting will never replace face value even with careful thought and hundreds of emojis and punctuation out the wazoo. It lacks qualities it can never possess.
I also want to clarify; I do have contacts who rarely if ever leave me feeling confused about tone or devalued because they simply don't want to take the time. There can absolutely be healthy conversations exchanged through messages. But I think even those healthy conversations cannot keep my relationships alive forever. If I only ever texted a partner but never spoke to them in person, we wouldn't last longer than a week. That goes for any relationship - family, friends, partners, co-workers.
I see the way phones have taken over our attention every day. And some days I think it's just the way of the world, it's just unstoppable progression because technology is the future and that's undoubtedly true, but it doesn't mean it has to be okay. I think we all ought to set time limits on our phones, we should all re-read our messages to see if we're delivering emotionally as much as we're delivering in words. Even though we can instantly respond, it doesn't mean we always should.
I find that my device which initially was provided to me as a tool, is now a crutch. For instance, when I'm in a waiting room as soon as I sit down, I take out my phone, or if I'm waiting for a friend at a coffee shop, I take out my phone. I don't tell the woman across from me in the waiting room I like her shoes. I don't chat to the person in line next to me or anyone else. I cower in my life within my phone. I hide behind my enslaving, consuming little device. But it's so easy to enter the void, isn't it? It's so easy to retreat to certainty. Because maybe the woman with the nice shoes is insufferably annoying and talks too much. Or maybe the person in line ignores your attempt at conversation and bruises your ego. But your little machine would never do that. Your favourite apps refresh and more content than you can devour appears without limitations for infinity. There's no risk. But no risk also means no reward. A safety net doesn't allow growth, and therein lies the issue with relying on my phone in public spaces when other people are present. I also fear we've reached a place where even if I decided to leave my phone in my pocket in the waiting room, the lady with the nice shoes would be too engrossed in her own phone to notice me and the fellow customer at the coffee shop would be too busy answering emails to notice anyone else.
So how can we build any new connections in real life if we're always in an electronic one? I want to meet people honestly. For them to see my flaws and inconsistencies and awkwardness and lack of perfection and I want to see the same thing from them. It's unnatural to have a perfect, pleasing, gorgeous identity and have others believe that's what you truly are. I think it's endearing to be messy, to not always have it together - hell! to never have it together. Why should we? We are taking every single day as it comes and learning and changing and growing every moment that passes. No one has it all, and no one knows what they're doing. So why is there this need to prove to everyone that we do? That we're content? I don't know about you, but I can't think of a point in time where I felt wholly contented. Sure, there have been moments and experiences, but overall, I have been unable to ditch the longing for an answer, for a feeling of being complete and happy. I think that's human and I'm worried that without admitting our fears and feelings and mistakes and flaws, we'll lose sight of what we really wanted, of who we intended to be. We'll stop growing. Because there's no need when you can snap a photo, edit the crap out of it, post it with a caption implying a well-rounded life, and fool everyone around you. There's no need when you can lie behind text messages because the person you're talking to can't hear your voice waver or see your cheeks get rosy. There's no need when you can avoid everything and ghost the world.
I know I'd be naive to think technology will ever slow down. I know it will just continue to become a larger part of our lives, and that genuinely worries me. I'm not against it, I love some of my tech and geek out on a lot of it, it's super cool. I just wish human nature didn't get left in the dust, I wish there was more of a balance and that people (including myself) could break their habits and see how deeply it affects them and the people around them. I genuinely fear that forty years down the road we'll be sitting in our supercomputer chairs out in space with barely any bone mass left, more obese than ever before, drinking all of our meals through a straw, unaware of the thousands of people surrounding us just an arm’s length away! Okay so maybe that's the premise of Disney Pixar's animated film WALL-E... that movie was generations ahead of its time... But in all seriousness, I really think we're headed into a future where the quality of conversation will have withered away to nothing and face value will have no value. I also am not admitting to being some phone hating, non-user. I'm frequently on my phone and texting others, but I wish this wasn't the case. I wish I wasn't so guilty of so many of the things I described earlier. It's hard to break ugly habits and to live life as less of a consumer. But I am trying, and the small things I've been doing to stop leaning on my bad habits have made significant differences for me. I feel more grounded and more aware of my own goals, happiness, and my life as a whole.
So the next time you're sitting in a waiting room, or on the bus, or waiting in line for coffee, notice what's around you - who is around you - and make an effort to talk. It doesn't even have to be a stranger; I see people staring at their phones while their best friend is standing right beside them. Or maybe you don't want to talk to anyone, that's okay too. Take the moment to be present. Notice you're alive and breathing, what do you smell? What do you see around you and what do those things mean to you? A moment of reflection or mindfulness might clear your head a little, give you perspective or just remind you of how spectacular it is that you've arrived at this place. So many things had to happen for you to be where you are, right now. Set your phone, laptop, or tablet down and consume the real world surrounding you right now instead of the one in your hand. There's a reason all these other people are here too. Life isn't mean to be scrolled through. It's meant to be lived.
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