Drop the phone, have a real conversation

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Apurva Sharma

Instead of focusing on each other, friends are focusing on their phones

Apurva Sharma, Staff Reporter

When you’re walking on the street, one of the most common sights is of people bumping into each other because they’re either on their phones or are frolicking around listening to their favorite artist’s new album so loud that all the other aspects of their surroundings seem less significant. When most people in their 20s think about their childhood, they think about how they played outdoors in the big green field along with the neighborhood kids. In our case, we can’t really think of anything fun, except for the few times that we were forced to go out and be social by our mothers.

 

People have become so obsessed with technology that it’s ridiculous. The need to be constantly checking our phones every 20 seconds has drawn us apart. Family dinners don’t seem like family dinners anymore. Sleepovers at a friend’s house aren’t as exhilarating as they were. Why? Because people do the same thing wherever they go: look at their phones with a mundane look on their face, while occasionally smirking because of the meme that their friend just sent. I’m not saying that I haven’t done any of these things before. I have, and in fact, my mother had told me that she’d send me to cellphone rehab, which apparently is a thing.
Most people would suffer from a withdrawal syndrome if they got their phones confiscated even for a mere .2 seconds. Instead of looking at the screen 24/7, why don’t we look around ourselves more? I started appreciating the beauty of existence after I took my tired eyes off of the lifeless display, and believe me, you can’t find much solace in anything else after you’ve found it in yourself.