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Life is What Happens When You’re Busy On Your Phone
Ever Wonder What You Might Be Missing?
On a recent walk through my suburban neighborhood, I kept coming upon people who were standing on the sidewalk, gazing at their phones.
They’d obviously been on a stroll, like me, but they’d been summoned by their ringtones and now stood there, absorbed in their devices.
It wouldn’t be worth commenting on except that I came upon several of these frozen tableaus during the course of my 30-minute ramble.
I turned a corner, for instance, to find a couple I know, standing side by side, staring at the phones in their hands. Like a still photo in a moving landscape.
When I interrupted their phone trances to say hello, they explained that their daughter, on vacation, had just emailed them photos of the Grand Canyon, which they were enjoying.
That’s pretty cool. On the other hand, if I hadn’t stopped to interrupt them, they never would have known that I’d walked by. Because they weren’t really there.
Once you have a smartphone, you are never entirely there again. Some part of you is always elsewhere, either inside the screen, or waiting to be summoned.
