Lost in Screens

I said to myself today, "No, man, this is actually a bad habit." I reckoned that whatever I was doing on my phone that was making me pay less attention to my surroundings as I walked down the streets wasn't worth risking my safety. And so I put my phone back in my right pocket. It wasn't long, however, before I started to want to pick it up again.

Realising that, not only is this a habit for me, but it actually is for so many people these days, especially young chaps like myself. On the bus, on the train, in a meeting, at church, in lecture rooms, at social gatherings—name it! You'll find people glued to their mobile phones. Not many people care much about intimate social interactions and are often engrossed in whatever social media has for them.

I do not know what having these digital technologies was like in the old days, but I remember what it was like for me when they weren't as sophisticated as they are now. We used to visit one another to have fun when we were kids. Some of us were more involved in family gatherings and functions than we are today.

For someone like me whose daily life revolves around digital things, it can be some sort of challenge to stay away from them for a long time. Hence, you'll find most of us using our mobile phones while eating.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner—I either have Netflix on and a film playing or I am waltzing through apps and social media. To me, the meal is much more enjoyable that way. But then, what about the people around me? I mean, people I care about and those that care about me—what do they get? They see someone whose attention to them or the potential bond between them is greatly belittled.

Speaking of families, what does it look like to have everyone focused on their mobile phones during family time? Ugly, that's for sure. And so there are some families that forbid active involvement in digital activities during times when the family is together.

Although such a rule didn't exactly exist for me growing up as a child, it does make some sense to implement it in our everyday lives, at least for the sake of interacting with the world and its environment around me.

Bonding happens through interaction, and interaction involves engaging with one another. Staying glued to our screens, we miss opportunities to connect with people around us. And family gatherings and times are some of the ways to build meaningful and long-lasting relationships with our parents and siblings.

So, therefore, seeing a family place a strict rule about phones at the dining clearly comes from a place of understanding what's important as family—togetherness. And, yes, it is something that I would implement in my home as a father someday. Before then, however, I have to master better habits and be more keen on being present in my interactions with people.

By the way, there's a new community I started called Digital Lifestyle. It's a hub for interesting, insightful, and useful things that could potentially improve how you do things in this digital world. Check it out, will you? Read more here.