Jordan A. Washington –
When was the last time you put down your phone? Be honest with yourself. If you said that you only put it down for a second to tie your shoe, that still counts.
The fact of the matter is that you were able to not rely on your phone for those quick seconds. Who knows? You could have recognized an awesome mural that you always pass while walking to your destination. Or you could have noticed how the sidewalk that you walk on is considerably cracked and you wonder to yourself “How could I ever miss that?”
As society becomes more technologically advanced, a large majority of us are finding ourselves using our phones a lot more than ever. So much so that according to a recent study by the research group Flurry, it was found that “mobile consumers now spend an average of 2 hours and 57 minutes each day on mobile devices. “ Crazy, right? But think about it. What daily activity do you do without the use of your phone? You could say walking to class, which may be true for some of you, but every time I see people walking around campus, they’re either looking down, or their listening to music from their device. You might say that you don’t when in class. Some people don’t, but I have been in countless classes where a lot of my classmates are watching videos and texting instead of paying attention to the professor.
A reason for the exorbitant phone usage amongst our generation might be because, according to NPR Staff, “Many of us reflexively grab our phones at the first hint of boredom throughout the day.” I know that there were and are times where I would be very bored and it seemed as if I didn’t know what to do with myself. Instead of going for a walk, picking up a new book to read, enjoying nature, I would nonchalantly pick up my phone and start scrolling for hours on end. Whether it be on social media or I was texting a friend, I still picked up the phone. We like to think that we are all ‘living in the moment’ and that by picking up our phones out of boredom, we are somehow connected to everyone around us, but are we really?
If we can go an hour, let alone a full day, without using our cell phones, maybe, just maybe, we would be ‘living in the moment’. I sometimes feel that as a generation, we are constantly influenced into thinking that two hours a day phone usage is the new normal. We may forget that when we were young kids, we played outside. Cell phones were there, but they were strictly used for calling others. If we wanted to have fun in those days, most of us grabbed some chalk or our favorite toys and we played with our friends. Now the typical hangout is if multiple people are in the same room, but they’re too preoccupied with their phones.
Moral of the story, please put down your phone every once in a while. Sometimes we complain about missing some of the biggest milestones/moments in our lives, but we fail to realize that we are the problem causing us to. Put down your phone, go outside, talk to a friend you haven’t spoken to in awhile, take a walk. Phones are great, but they’re not when they start to take big portions of time away from ‘living in the moment.’
Jordan Washington, from Olympia Fields, Illinois, is a junior majoring in English with a double minor in Music and Communications at Illinois College. Jordan is a opinions writer for The Rambler and is a member of Forte and Wind Ensemble.
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