“Bar Creates Custom Glasses To Curb Cell Phone Use”.
Mhmm. Mmkay. Intrigued enough to click.
I’ll bite.
Yeah. More’a this.
I mean, it doesn’t take much meandering through my site to know I’m exactly one and a half Miley “news” updates away from moving into a treehouse and growing out a wedding train of arm pit hair for my jungle prince visitors to Rapunzel up and repel down. And that technology in general has played a good part in that. I’ve been wanting to have this conversation with a lot of people, actually. We all know what good things having a handheld interwebz has allowed.
But looking over your life with a fine tooth comb (like the nurses in elementary school used to use for lice checks –and were unsettlingly similar to the picture day box o’ combs we’d get a month later) which things went south for you when your dad came home with that AOL infused computer for the first time? And hooked it up? And you heard the voice of what could be your quirky social studies teacher, saying “Wel-come!” (pause) “You.Got.Mail!”
If you can’t remember that – what happened after your first few phones?
For me, it was a novelty – initially.
However, it was soon followed by a lotta hiding behind a 2D version of myself when texting became my “instead of talking” shoe-in and iphones arrived with social media implanted. It was like “Why bother going out at all? Why bother enduring the initial anxiety about being around people when I can sit here and assume I know what tone they just typed that comment in? Or put off answering them while I think of something witty to say” We even rudely use these gadgets while we’re socializing.
And, no, mostly nobody keeps the phone handy for the bullshit “in case of emergency” or “in case of work” excuses I’ve heard. We’re checking Instagram for picture likes. Facebook for rant likes. Answering emails and texts that aren’t crucial to answer right right right NOW. Uploading pics of our kids that we can never erase from reality and who knows how they’ll feel when they’re 15 and embarrassed or 20 and their employers can access their whole life in an archive of whatever Facebook will have sold it to by then. We’re doing all of these things – willing to sacrifice privacy on a platter – because it’s easier. It’s easier than the ebb and flow of emotions in our bodies just sitting and talking to another human person. The silent lulls in convo. The attempted reading of microexpressions and tone. The not knowing how they perceive you – and waiting to find out. Instead of doing any conscious brainwork – let’s spend the time distracting ourselves, while walking, talking, driving, traversing through a highly trafficked parking lot…
Yep. Eff hypotheticals though.
’cause that last thing’s an actual one I witnessed the other day
So, I’m leaving Wegmans and walking through the parking lot back to my car. Suddenly, I see a driver (not paying attention) reversing his car and about to hit a lady (also not paying attention – oblivious – looking down at her phone). As anyone would, I shout, “Look out!” and point at the car about to turn her into a trunk ornament. And you wanna know what this bish does? She looks toward the car slowly, then turns and looks over at me with a face as friendly as Hitler’s – before looking back down at her phone and continuing on. I just saved your life from a weapon on wheels, you effing cancer of humanity.
And you’re gonna face snap at me with them laser eyes?
(I shit you not, this is her. Legit. No mistaking it.)
I’m not surprised and I am. I mean, a simple warning like that sits badly with people because they know they should be paying attention. So, getting defensive is the easy answer when you feel embarrassed about acting dumb and don’t want to answer for your bad habits. So, yeah man. I’m all for implementing this cute idea that reconnects peeps in pubs. Or anywhere. Maybe they can even make a coffeehouse version.
But it wouldn’t be an A-pants post if I didn’t end with at least a few concessions:
A. What happens when you get drunk and spill beer on your iphone?
B. I know plenty of people just as addicted to their alcohol as they are their technology. It goes – keep drink in one hand, phone in other, type with one hand, and ignore date because they’re doing the same.
C. Did anyone else think (from just reading the title) that this was gonna be a story about how they tweaked the lighting in the bar (Somehow? #reasons #science) so that patrons would have to wear ugly complimentary maybe-some-rando-just-wore-them-before-you glasses in order to see their screens?
Who of you can last your next social outing without touching your phones?
