The growing communication problem

Yesterday afternoon my friend and I went to lunch at the cafeteria on campus, and as we sat down at a table, we looked over to our left and saw the cutest little boy, around 4 or 5 years old. He was sitting there, eating his pizza with a smile on his face, and trying to talk to his mom about some cartoon action hero. The problem: his mom was on her cell phone, not looking or listening to her son. This continued for the entire duration they were at the caf.

As I sat there with my friend, I just felt sad for the boy, but at the same time, not necessarily judging the mom. We live in a society where we are constantly seeking new information and staying connected to those not in the same room as us. We use texting and social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest to stay connected or look up what friends and those random acquaintances you only met once are up to. We use the apps on our phone to listen to music, play games, possibly read the news, or look at the weather. And we do this all the time. Our phones are becoming a handheld computer, and everywhere we go, we are attached to it. Between classes, students’ phones are in hand and their eyes are glued to the screen. During classes, students take out their phone and text friends, making plans for later than night or on the weekend. We have become dependent on these devices to live our life, at the detriment of losing face-to-face contact and communication.

And I am also a victim of this problem. Sometimes I will be hanging out with friends and we will all be having a conversation about something that lasts awhile, but as soon as the conversation begins to die, someone will pull out their phone and start checking messages or their social media sites. This causes a chain reaction, one by one everyone will start taking out their phones and the room will just grow silent as we all delve into a different world, a cyber-world. Instead of interacting with the people in the room with you at the time, we resolve to talking to people in some other place who are doing some other thing. I know that this is a problem, but is there really a way to stop it? Phones are becoming more and more advanced, allowing you to do a lot more, at a faster speed, anywhere you want. I know we all have busy lives and we are racing against the clock to get everything crammed and finished in a day, but it is just sad to think that face-to-face communication that was once the only way to communicate is now slowly deteriorating and could possibly just fade away. It is also sad to think that this is the message the younger generation is learning, that phones are your lifeline and you depend on them to survive.

“Electronic communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with his soul encourages another person to be brave and true.” –Charles Dickens