Dearest fellow Homo sapiens,
I write you concerning a recent experience of mine.
This past week I received a very charming text message while walking through
the halls of the JFSB(for those of you who don't know it's a building on BYU campus roughly the size of the Death Star) , and I felt it necessary to respond with a charming
message of my own. Such a task is no easy feat and as I continued walking I was
able to create a somewhat clever response. But before sending it I changed my
mind, I had last second doubts, and I deleted it all. I maintained my stroll at
half pace as I reconstructed another attempt to sound intelligent. After a
short while I finally put together a message that I deemed “worthy” and pressed
“send”.
As I shifted my gaze up from the almost hypnotic glow
of the phone screen I suddenly became aware of my surroundings. I had just
stepped into what appeared to be an office. My eyes scanned the room and found
a plaque “Women’s Studies”. I was perplexed, I was certainly not there to study
women, nor am I a woman; never had I felt
so out of place. To add to the confusion, I half turned to discover a secretary
whose eyebrows were raised inquisitively as she stared at me. Before she could
say anything I spun in the direction of the door and made an awkward trudge to
escape the uncomfortable situation, nearly colliding with an incoming blonde.
After I spent ten minutes just trying to get out of
that maze of building I stepped outside, sat down and began to reflect on what
had just happened. It struck me that trying to text and walk at the same time
had greatly lowered my motor and navigation skills. I looked up the passing
masses of students, they all walked by; eyes and fingers locked on phones,
their feet dragging, bumping into each other every few steps. And suddenly the
realization set in; the zombie apocolypse
has already begun, and we’re the zombies.
Okay… Don’t panic. The good news is if you are able to
separate your hand from your i-phone, there is still hope for you. If you
can’t, the arms gotta go and I am willing to offer you a relatively clean and
inexpensive amputation. Anyhow, whatever your case may be, I write to explain
the dangers and side effects of this new technology known as the smart phone.
So the main danger of such use is distraction. We pass
half the day with our spinal cords hunched over peering at the light of the
screen and we have no idea what is happening around us. We try to justify this
by saying that we’re multi-tasking; I’m sending a message to my bff, listening
to a lecture, playing Angry Birds AND changing my profile picture at the same
time; my productivity levels would make Thomas Edison feel like a slouch.
Right?
Well not
really. Have you ever tried speaking to a person who was “multitasking”? For
instance you start talking to the girl sitting next to you, she’s really bright
and the conversation starts to pick up. Then in the middle of her own sentence
she stops talking, drops her gaze and starts pounding on the miniature
keyboard. You sit there listening patiently for the next word to come out of
her mouth and you realize after a few seconds that there will probably be no
continuation of the original sentence. And just like the bald man is ever so
conscious of his lack of hair and tries to cover it, you try to cover up the
indecency of the situation by making a humorous comment, anything to fill that
awful silence. But she doesn’t laugh, or even acknowledge the fact that you’ve
spoken, she just types away in a trance. And then, just when you turn away from
her in disgust she laughs. You open your mouth and rotate your head, happy that
she actually heard, only to discover that she was snickering at the message.
Your perception of her goes from “witty”, to “decent”, to “mindless hag” in
about a two minute span.
Does
this mean that she’s not interested in me? Is the other person she’s texting is
more of a priority for her? Not necessarily, I mean, how many times have you
stopped what you’re doing in response to someone just to get the annoying
glowing envelope to go away on the screen? Many times regardless of the sender,
we feel more obligated to respond to them then to continue with our normal
lives. We’ll stop the regular flow of everything else because one of our
cousin’s ex-boyfriends brothers commented on my Facebook status.
And if you don’t think that distracted driving is a
serious problem then it’s because you do it. It’s not hard to recognize; the
seventeen year-old who holds up traffic as if he were seventy year-old, the girl
bobbing her head up every few seconds as she struggles to stay in the proper
lane. Zombies on the interstate? Yeah, like some strange mix of Grand Theft
Auto and Resident Evil, but only it’s real.
But anyhow, I, like you, would like to accomplish
something in my life, and I believe to do so, my complete focus and attention
is required. On some stuff we can’t just go through the motions while we’re “multi-tasking”;
nobody wants a surgeon that tweets “#workisSOboringOMG” right before sticking a
razorblade into your esophagus. I’m not saying don’t ever use your phone, but
rather learn how and when to use it. When there is something important going on
around you, be there. Do one thing at a time, and do it well. We must fight
this surge of zombeism before all that is good is destroyed. Regards,
Ian Peacock.
