This morning on my morning run (where I get most of my best thinking done) I ran by two (not one) cars whose passengers were engrossed in their phones. One was a driver at a traffic light and I decided to trek behind him just in case he might not see me. And the other cell phone user was at a four way stop. The driver was focused on the road, and the passenger was a young teen fully engrossed in his cell phone. And although they were together in so many ways, in many ways they were not.
I don't know why but I was struck by my own experience. I remember vividly when I transitioned from the "friendly bus driver," taking my kids and their friends places, to the sullen teenage times where there seemed to be an invisible glass wall dividing the front seat from the backseat. And then of course I remember finally graduating to all passengers on a phone, everyone quiet, everyone glued to their respective screens.
And as I started slowly jogging through the crosswalk I looked back at the random stranger who really wasn't a stranger at all.
You’ve got me so intrigued by two ideas I see here-
ReplyDeleteFirst, the evolution of sorts of how we use and regard our phones. Second, how they make the stranger, not-a-stranger. True! And yet, each of us, on our phones, has a whole universe of things we could be looking at/learning/participating in. But then, maybe we ARE doing the same thing more often than we realize, like you and me both sketch-journaling!!!
Fran, WOW! Very serendipitous. Crazy good points. . . . Life may not be so random after all.
Delete