Wifi spoken here!
My faith in humanity was restored a little yesterday. I’m not a pessimist or especially paranoid about the future of the world, but I’ve had my share of human-related disappointments and OMG moments to wonder (more than once, I admit) if we are not indeed going to hell in a wifi enabled hand-basket.
On the rare occasions that I’m out and about in the world, I’m shocked to see so many people buried nose-deep in cell phones or plugged into some other device that effectively seals them in a (seemingly to them) private, protective bubble of solitude and estranges them from the organic interactions going on around them. Gone are the days of chatting with people in grocery store lines as they are, more often than not, chatting away with someone on a cell phone while the two year old in their buggy empties the contents of the candy rack onto the floor.
“My name is [blank] and I am a cellphoneaholic.”
My children and grandchildren–my adorable, beautiful, wonderfully talented children and grandchildren–have been hypnotized by their cell phones. They rarely look up. Even the three year old is addicted. The first words out of his mouth on my last visit were, “Hey, Grandma,” hug and kiss, “can I hold your phone?” I was beginning to think that this is now the normal way to interact with people: talk loudly, wave hands energetically while staring at the top of their head.
Enter my recently graduated-from-college granddaughter who arrived for a visit on her one day off from work. She’s gorgeous (seriously!), smart and very sweet. She drove two-and-a-half hours through bumper to bumper Disney-tourist traffic in Orlando, all the while keeping me updated on her progress (thank you, Siri!) for our first solo, post-grad, woman-to-woman visit. I was very excited to have her all to myself for the afternoon. And I did! I was thrilled.
We went out for lunch and talked–face to face, eye to eye. And I’m happy to say that I don’t know if the part in her hair was crooked or straight because I didn’t see the top of her head once. We talked and laughed about life and men and love, and lack, thereof; we discussed the importance of real communication in relationships both personal and at work; we discovered new things about each other that would never show up on a Google search and had a great time just being together.
Hope!
So, here’s my good news for the day: there is hope, I think, in the future of a constantly jacked-in world. It is possible to have a continuous conversation without the need to check out each and every ping or buzz of a cell phone notification. My granddaughter is living proof! She checked her phone discretely while I went to the kitchen for water. She put it away when I sat back down and engaged in meaningful conversation until she left seven hours later. I have to say, I am impressed, and happy, and content. Faith restored.
Just for Fun!
Yikes!
Cave Dweller: Alone in a Social World 