At the quaint coffee shop, I was the sole customer, waiting for my inessential cheese Danish and 16 oz. to-go. A beautiful place, with sprawling plants and rotating artwork on the walls, I chatted a bit with the baristas. But then, I reached for my phone and slowly sat to scan my work emails, seized by the bold unread inbox.
An older gentleman walked in and sneered at me in disgust. I nodded with brief eye contact, but I was caught up troubleshooting an issue. “Whatever,” I thought, feeling the urgency of screen staring was vindicated.
The man placed his order and hovered over me, stopping his final footstep with a slam. I glanced up and his face was contorted as if I was draped with bird droppings.
“You know what?” he asked.
“Here it comes…” I thought, locking the phone.
“I can’t stand this song,” he said.
The Motown hit “My Girl” had been blasted since he entered.
“When I was at camp as a kid…” he said. “The counselors blared this song every morning for two weeks straight to wake us up.”
“I hate it too. It’s just too saccharine. It’s overused in movies and commercials. And every wedding.”
“Yes, it is. I’ve been hating it for 55 years!” The man sat next to me and crinkled his newspaper. We exchanged further comments, clutching our devices.
Staring at my phone in public, especially while walking, is something that I’m trying reduce. I don’t aspire to be a cyborg. Grocery shopping with an Apple Vision Pro strapped on is not a goal.
There’s always a notification to tap into if you crave it. Lingering at a Home Depot line or at your kid’s bus stop are prime moments for great conversations, or just reclaiming a sliver of humanity.
At Oracle Park where the San Francisco Giants play, to help prevent distracted human collisions, they installed separate lanes in the concession areas for walking with and without phones. I thought it was a joke when I first saw it.
Temporary, experimental phone lanes were also developed in Washington D.C., Belgium, Germany and China.
All of this leads to whether nomophobia (anxiety about not having access to a mobile phone and phone services) grips many of us.
For every potentially mundane moment in life, we can season it with a digital serotonin spike and get displaced from our physical surroundings. Are we ditching traditional social manners for the sake of addicted convenience? Are we preferring to be antisocial “offline”, choosing devices over humans?
As I devoured the enormous empty caloric baked good, I realized that portion control of screen (and food) is difficult to regulate for adults and kids alike.
