How often these days are you stuck in traffic, waiting in a store or sitting in a restaurant and you reach for your smartphone. Not out of need, but simply out of habit.
Those addictive little devices that fit oh-so snugly in the palms of our hands. They have such a hold over us that opportunities for chance meetings, conversations and loving gazes are utterly missed.
Instead, the enigmatic pull of the smartphone lures us into the black hole of mindless information, fake news and superficial nonsense. Offering the illusion of protection. We’re no different than babies seeking their pacifiers as protection from the cruel threatening world.
How many times have you reached for your phone in a moment of perceived vulnerable discomfort? In the elevator perhaps, squeezed between others all looking the other way. On the Metro or the Tube. In the silent line at the takeout place.
Yet no protection is provided. Instead, these devices are crippling our society’s organic capacities for connection, discourse, dialogue and vulnerable exchanges.
There is something rotten in the state of social media. At first, a decade ago, this cyber hookup of more and more people sounded remarkable, even wonderful.
But now the big picture has become clear: These social media created a fantasy world in which vulnerable people are sucked into a vortex of disconnection. The tech Emperor lost its new clothes a while back, leaving behind a widespread naked loneliness.
Next time you go out to dinner with a friend or partner, take a risk. Leave your cell phone at home … and check in with yourself. How do you feel? Naked, fearful, uncomfortable? Something to reflect upon.
Instead, sit across the table from your companion for the evening and look into his or her eyes. Allow your companion to look into yours. Recall and reclaim wonderful memorable moments in which talking, laughing and being vulnerable together are where it all begins and ends. Two people sharing their experiences, feelings and thoughts — their humanity — in the flesh, sans any kind of electronic equipment.
The more you make this choice, the more you’ll discover just how much these true connections matter.
The living breathing presence of humanity creates connectivity. Everything else pales in comparison.