Just Put Down the Phone

As I finished Interpersonal Divide today, I sat and pondered the book as well as a subject for my last blog post. I then remembered Heidi Nyland's brief story from an interview about working a drive through window (Interpersonal Divide, page 138). While her recollection was not shocking to me, once I put it in perspective, it was more like unbelievable. As we have grown up and become part of our communities, we have relied on others and actual communities to become the best people we can. We want to live the American dream and be good citizens. If we continue to use technology in the way we have been, particularly in this case the cell phone, we will destroy all that our fore fathers worked for in accomplishing an involved society. Personally, I want that instead of being the inconsiderate cell phone man portrayed in the following video:



We have been given so much power as citizens of the United States, including the ability to have access to innovative tools like a cell phone. In a heartbeat though, we will use that to abuse the community that provided it to us. In order to stay happy as people within our social realms, we need to pay a courtesy to those around us, those in the flesh that are working to serve us or even keeping us company. While I have never experienced what Ms. Nyland did in working the drive-through, I have been out with a friend supposedly enjoying dinner together only to have the friend decide it is time to return calls or catch up with other friends. Not a wonder I don't go out with that friend anymore... I imagine the gentleman in this video doesn't have too many friends that want to get together with him either:



If we all have experiences like the man in the video, Ms. Nyland or myself in which the cell phone or other technology came first, society will deteriorate bit by bit. I will admit that I have been on the phone with someone while working on another task, not fully participating in my phone conversation. I am sure there are many of us too that are online or working on our laptops with the TV or stereo muffling at us in the background. And let us not forget the 1000s of drivers texting and talking on their phones. In each of these cases, we are losing touch more and more in the relationships we need in our lives. Well, except maybe the driving one. There we are possibly bringing bodily harm.

As Bugeja wrote, we brought mobile phones for safety reasons and then use them for trivial reasons, putting lives at risk. This applies to all the technology in our lives. If we tune out the world and do not play our part in being social beings, we are putting our communities at risk. So, if you can't bare to leave your cell phone at home, at least leave it in your car or turn it off when you are in a public place. Whoever waits on you or converses with you will respect you more, and you can play your part in society. Don't worry, the phone won't go anywhere.