The following is a true cautionary
tale of how I found myself in the Twilight Zone. The names have been changed.
It was a Friday night. My two
year old and I sat in a busy family restaurant close to the movie theatre. My
husband was out of town, and I had decided to take the opportunity for some
bonding time with my daughter. We talked
about the day’s events, pointed out interesting things in the restaurant’s
eclectic decor and drew pictures of moose with giant antlers on the back of the
place mats. After a few minutes she
turned to me and said, “Mommy, why’s it so quiet?”
At first I wanted to say, “Because
you’re not squealing for once, dear.”
But as I looked around the
restaurant, I saw what she meant. There wasn’t an empty seat in the house, but
you could probably hear a mouse fart. At
the table next to us were eight teenage girls. They sat with their heads
lowered, silent. They were all reading magazines. Once in a while they would
swap or say, “check this out,” but otherwise they weren’t conversing with each
other.
“Teenagers.” I thought. It’s typical
of youth to get so absorbed in popular media.
On the table to my right there
was a family of four. The two boys were playing a card game. The dad was
looking at the newspaper, and the mother was scribbling something on a lined
piece of paper. “At least the kids are playing together,” I thought. But they
weren’t. On closer observation, they were both playing solitaire. Their food
was getting cold.
At the next booth, a father sat
with his adult son. The son was sorting through a stack of flyers and mail with
a look of concentration on his face. The father was staring straight ahead,
saying nothing.
The next table was no different,
except that it was young children staring into the restaurant’s silent video screen
and the parents who were distracted. One of them had an open volume of Encyclopedia Britannica; the other
was making a scrapbook about their outing.
All around the room, the patrons
sat with their heads lowered, not uttering a sound.
The silence was broken when the
restaurant staff burst out of the kitchen and began to sing their own version
of “Happy Birthday” to a jubilant looking woman with a flock of white hair who
was, according to the cake, turning 65. The
family at her extended table began to sing and applaud. As the server presented
the cake, her husband began to root around in his bag. He pulled out a phone
book, shook his head. Pulled out a stack of post-it notes, shook his head. Out
came an atlas, a GPS device, a deck of cards, a tape player, an old address
book, a stack of files, a farmer’s almanac, and a watch. The cake was now on
the table, candle burning, dripping wax all over the cake. Frantically the man sorted
through the junk. Everyone waited. “Hang on!” he said. “Ah, here we go.” He produced a Polaroid camera, and took a
photo of his wife’s special moment. Then he took another. And another. He took
12 photos, and handed one to everyone at the table. At last the lady blew out
her candles which were now melted into stumps. Everyone cheered. The family ate
cake slowly and silently while staring at the photos.
The teenagers at the table next
to me had been sufficiently distracted by the Birthday display that they were
looking at one another now. “Can you check what movies are playing, Britney?” one of
them asked. Britney dug through her giant purse and pulled out a newspaper
movie theatre guide. Something else fell out of her bag.
“Oh, my God, check this out,
guys. I’m like, so lame.” She plunked a thick photo album on the table. The
girls huddled around to look at the photos. I’ll admit I took a peek. Britney
wasn’t kidding about being lame. The album contained about 500 photos of
Britney and different plates of food she had eaten. They forgot to check up on the movie.
“What is going on here?” I thought. “Is this a reunion for the School for
the Socially Inept?”
A large truck pulled up outside.
A man came in with a box of envelopes. He handed them out to each and every
person sitting in the restaurant, except me. People dropped their forks and began
to open the envelopes.
What could be so important? My
first thought was that these people were all part of some kind of team of
shareholders, awaiting news that they were all millionaires. They seemed eager
enough.
“That’s adorable!” chortled one
woman, ripping into her envelope furiously. “Just look what your aunt Janice
sent me.” It turned out not to be a
letter at all, but a piece of paper with a happy face drawn on it. Her children
shrugged, disinterested, and ripped into their own envelopes. Some people got newspaper
clippings. Some had junk flyers. Nobody receive
anything important at all. And yet they went on reading and stacking and
sorting like oppressed mailroom staff.
Busy busy.
The story is true. But the names are
changed to protect certain telecommunication devices of supposed intelligence. I suppose by now you know what I’m talking
about.
Now before you dismiss me as a condescending
technophobe, let me say this. The reason I don’t own a mobile phone is not
because I’m such a superior human that I can resist the allure of social media.
I have a computer at home that I waste plenty of hours on every night. I have
a camera that I find hard to put down. The reason I don’t have a phone is
because I can’t resist it. I know that if I had one, I would be right there with everyone else reading and texting and ignoring my family.
Mobile technology has robbed us of our engagement to the world with brilliant stealth. Nobody looks up long enough to notice that nobody is looking up anymore. What happened to the time when Family
restaurants were family time? Or when dance classes meant spending that 30
minutes watching your daughter twirl and tiptoe? Or when family game night involved a board
and dice and actual eye contact?
I’m proud to say that I have
remained mobile device sober. But I’ll admit I’m not yet facebook sober– I’m on
there as soon as my daughter goes to bed. I liken it to being a weekend binge drinker
instead of walking around with a flask of malt liquor in my pocket. I'm working on it. But to get to a point of moderation is not so easy in a society that deems this behaviour so acceptable. We now know that texting and driving is dangerous. But so is texting and living.
My hope is that as time goes on,
people become aware of social decorum as it relates to phone and tablet use. I’m not suggesting tossing away your devices. Sometimes
you do have to make a phone call. Sometimes you need to unwind or catch up on
the news. Sometimes you need to watch a video of a cat walking on his hind legs.
But when is it acceptable?
As a simple rule for us and one to
teach our children, I propose this:
It’s unacceptable to use a device
in a situation where its low technology predecessor would be inappropriate. If it’s antisocial to read a book on an outing with your friends, don’t read internet articles. If it is rude to sort through paper mail while entertaining a
guest, don’t check your email. If taking an entire roll of film of something
would be incredibly superfluous, don’t take 36 digital photos.
While the size and novelty of a device makes access to the world possible, it doesn’t make it permissible. If you must carry something with you at all times, carry cognizance. Real life... there's no app for that.
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| Banksy Mural: Mobile Lovers 2014, UK |
