The Scene staff
You’ve heard the saying, “The best way to get a smile is to give one.” It makes sense, doesn’t it? But these days, it’s easier said than done. As a matter of fact, it’s almost impossible.
Why? Because no one is looking up! Everyone is looking down — at the electronic devices in their hands. And what wonderful inventions they are.
A smartphone is, in no particular order, a GPS navigator, a calculator, a day planner, a calendar, a clock, a stereo, a storage unit, a tablet, a dictionary, a book, a video camera, a still camera, a library, an Internet connection, a thermometer, a device for emailing, texting, banking and playing games. And, oh yeah, it’s a phone!
Don’t get me wrong, I think this modern technology, which affords me the opportunity to balance my checkbook while listening to Aretha Franklin on the bus, is very groovy. I can dig it.
But at what cost? When an elderly lady drops her bus pass, and the young man beside her doesn’t pick it up, well, we have a problem. Is chivalry dead? Was this gentleman so wrapped up in playing “Dirty Birds” or “Candy Smash” or browsing the old “Interweb” that he simply didn’t notice? Probably.
Lucky I was paying attention. I assisted the woman by picking up her pass, promptly throwing out my back!
Everywhere you look, across all walks of life, young and old, rich and poor, male and female, everyone seems to have a smartphone. If it isn’t in their hands or on the side of their heads, its connected to their ears by wires.
If you are a volunteer fireman, an on-call doctor, a reporter, or even a parent, by all means keep your telephone on, but in vibrate mode. Or, better yet, get a pager and find a phone booth to return that important call and … Oops, wrong century!
Where are smartphones ringing? On trains, buses and airplanes, in the bathroom, in the check-out line at the grocery store, in the halls of schools and colleges, in bedrooms, in moving cars, in parks, museums, hospitals, churches and movie theaters; in moving cars, at sporting events, weddings and funerals; and in the workplace. They are even smuggled into jails and prisons. No place is sacred.
You see people talking on the phone or texting while walking down the street, and they run right into things, such as other people or street signs. Or they fall into holes or trip over curbs.
One of the things people are doing with their smartphones is checking social-media sites, another topic worth addressing. How many “friends” do you have on Facebook? Are they really friends? How many have you actually met? Twenty percent? Ten percent?
Do you care where they are going out to dinner? What their children did at school? What their favorite video game is? Where they went on vacation? Who their other friends are?
All this communication, all the time — is it really necessary? And is it even real communication?
The comedian Louis C.K. says he doesn’t allow his children to have smartphones. He has a very real concern about the loss of empathy among children who are addicted to their electronic devices, and it is no laughing matter.
“I think these things are toxic, especially for kids,” he said. “They don’t look at people when they talk to them, and they don’t build empathy. You know, kids are mean, and it’s ‘cause they are trying it out. They look at a kid and they go, ‘You’re fat,’ and then they see the kid’s face scrunch up and they go, ‘Oh, that doesn’t feel good to make a person do that.’ But they’ve got to start with doing the mean thing. But when they write ‘You’re fat’ (on a computer or smartphone), they just go, ‘Hmmm … that was fun. I like that.’”
Dr. Timothy Johnson, ABC’s senior medical contributor, also has weighed in on the subject. He said he has witnessed the “dire consequences of kids who are ‘empathy-challenged.’” Is that what all this technology is doing for us?
Have we gotten so tech-savvy, so wirelessly connected that we are slowly losing the art of face-to-face social interaction? And I don’t mean Skype. I mean good old-fashioned, look-you-in-the-eye and talk-to-one-another interaction.
People need to take time to be themselves and not have to constantly be doing something. If we were to participate in a hand-held electronic device shutdown just one day a year, would we smile at each other more? Or would life as we know it cease to exist? Just sayin’.