The modern phone and zombieism.

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.