Try Losing Your Phone

I lost my phone the other day. It was a revealing event. I realized how dependent I had gotten on that little device. My thoughts even turned to the subject of idolatry! Should something be allowed to take such a central place in one’s life?

Much has been, and continues to be written on the subject of our cell phones and the impact they have on our lives and our society. We really are carrying out a huge social experiment, the outcome of which may be dire, indeed.

Renny Gleeson, a technology and culture pundit from Portland, Oregon, speaks of a “culture of availability,” and a conflicting obligation to be available. One of the memes he showed in a recent TED Talk had a man, apparently standing in his child’s daycare center, texting amidst the bustle. The caption: “What’s happening here, now, isn’t as important to me as what could be happening anywhere else.” Gleeson’s plea: “Let’s make technologies that make people more human, and not less.”

Sherry Turkle, a prof at MIT, takes an even more depressing view. She talks of the new skill of maintaining eye contact while texting, people texting at funerals – in short, being “Alone Together” (the title of her book). She points out that conversation takes place in real time, and we can’t control what we want to say. In online communication, we can “re-touch” our words, making ourselves sound better. This “flight from conversation” compromises our capacity for self-reflection. Ironically, we connect to avoid feeling alone; we need to be alone in order to really connect.

She does sound an optimistic note, however. She says we are early in our love affair with technology. We need to consider how we build it, how we use it. Start thinking of solitude as a good thing. Set aside places and times when conversation is sacrosanct.

Try losing your phone sometime. It can be very instructive!