4:33 PM. The white typeface on my iPhone stared back at me. CNN notifications popped up on my lock screen, broadcasting reports about a shooting in San Bernardino, CA. Soundcloud sent a notification about Disclosure uploading a new track. Youtube asked if I wanted to watch VICE’s most recent documentary about Ali Boulala.
And on top all that, my phone chimed to say my Uber had arrived.
I stepped out of my building, eyes glued to my screen, and slid into the backseat of the Toyota Corolla, cheerily saying hello without looking into the eyes in the rearview mirror. My driver asked how my day was going, his voice reverberating with joy. Struck by his emotion, my eyes tore from my screen to look at the rearview mirror. His eyes crinkled in the corners, a physical manifestation of the joy in his voice. I set down my cell phone and proceeded to indulge in a conversation with him.
“It’s so hard to have a curious conversation with people anymore,” he said, his eyes trailing off into the Seattle skyline. The traffic on James Street leading to the freeway was backed up. As always.
We had just discussed the coldness of Seattleites, us both being transplants. “It’s like, our phones have created this wall against our hearts that keep us from wanting to engage with others.”
And he’s right.
I’ve experienced the fabled Seattle freeze, but more widespread than that, this total disconnect that comes from connecting deeply to our phones. The more we stare at our screens, the less we find the need to talk to other people. The more you stalk a person’s social media, the less curious you are to engage with them in person and find out what they’re all about. You already hold this idea of who there are, and there’s something about holding this preconceived (social media-ized) persona that keeps you from wanting to engage further.
And beyond the realm of social media, the internet in general. We live in an age of mass consumption – we consume enormous amounts of information daily. Today, you will consume as much information as Shakespeare took in over a lifetime. Researchers have found that it takes twenty-five minutes to recover from a phone call and fully process the information. In a world where we’re faced with interruptions every eleven minutes, we are never fully caught up with our lives.
We have facts streaming in on us and less time to process. Your news feed keeps scrolling into a downwards abyss, minutes tick by, information flashes by, and your brain is scrambling to sift and process what it deems important.
We are bombarded.
“That’s kinda a part of why I like driving,” my driver said. We had inched forward a few blocks, the skyline had come into full view, and the wintertime sun was beginning to set, painting the sky pale purple. “I can’t use my phone, so it’s eight hours or so where I’m just looking at the city, or trying to talk to the people who gets in my car, but,” he chuckled. “Most of them are on their phone, you know?”
I know.
My phone sat next to me on the leather seat, untouched during this conversation. I could feel the buzz of notifications but hadn’t paid mind to them, letting them slip from my priorities. I looked at the sunset out my own window, and gave my brain a break from being bombarded. It would take me twenty-five minutes to process the conversation my driver and I just had. I knew it was almost impossible to keep my brain from ingesting any other information – that’s hardly possible in this day and age. But what I could do was take a step back from my phone, take a step back from this Toyota Corolla, and indulge myself in the sunset sky.