Choosing People Over My Phone. Won’t You Join Me?

Choosing People Over My Phone. Won’t You Join Me?

I sat on a chair facing the front windows of the coffee shop, which is always a hazardous position, since I tend to people-watch rather than write. And, sure enough, within five minutes I was studying the mother and daughter at the bistro table outside. The daughter had a long, dark ponytail and thick bangs hanging over cat-eye glasses, which accented the liner around her large, sad eyes. She wore a t-shirt and a graphic scarf, a striped skirt and brown leather ballet flats.

The mother’s hair was teased and highlighted, swept back with a clip. I could only study the back of the mother’s head, because of where I was sitting, but she also wore glasses, a striped skirt, and brown leather sandals with straps tied around her ankles.

I couldn’t hear a word they said, but I could tell the mother and daughter were unhappy. Or maybe it’s because I noticed they did not really talk. Instead, they used their smart phones and their iPads as if they were their only means of communication. The mother would hold out her phone and the daughter would dutifully look at the picture, and then glance back down at her notebook, scrawling a sentence without lifting her pen.

The mother and daughter appeared wealthy: perhaps it was their casually expensive clothes; the gadgets they carried, or the mother’s jewels, flashing every time she held out her phone. They were, perhaps, Meredith and Amelia Fitzpatrick, characters from my novel, The Midwife, brought to life. And they made me sad.

I looked away from them and noticed a man standing on the street corner. It was a beautiful summer day in Tennessee, breezy and 75 degrees, which is as rare as seeing snow fall in August. But he didn’t look up. He didn’t notice the trees or the wind snapping the flag beside the courthouse.

He just stood there, on the corner, staring at the screen of his phone for a long time.

I then noticed the parents and child beside me. The daughter was around my middle daughter’s age: two or two-and-a-half. She had wavy brown hair pulled back with three pastel-colored ponytail holders. She wore Hello Kitty socks and sneakers. She was sitting beside her mother, watching cartoons on a smart phone while absently eating a grilled cheese.

I overheard the mother talking about how tired the little girl was; that she’d been playing at the park. But the child never looked up; she never communicated. It broke my heart when the dad said, “You’ve been so good!” Because of course the child had been good: she’d been staring at a screen instead of having a nice lunch out with her parents.

The parents were about my age or a little older. The dad wore a baseball cap and a brightly-colored wedding band that matched his wife’s. His wife had short hair and a voice that was kind. The parents loved their little girl; it was obvious. But they became increasingly frustrated when she wouldn’t respond to them.

The dad finally said, “What’s more important? The person or the screen?!”

I thought of the mother and the daughter, sitting at the bistro table without talking; I thought of the man on the street corner, who never noticed the beauty of the day because he was too busy staring at his phone; I thought of the little girl, who was only doing what she’d been taught by her parents and the world around her.

When I came home, I left my phone on the table while I went for my daily hike and noticed the trees, the breeze, the soothing trickle of the creek. I left my phone in the back bedroom, so I wouldn’t be tempted to check it while I cooked supper and talked to my kindergartner about her day; I put my phone on airplane mode before I went to bed, and instead of checking social media, read a few pages of a book. And I am going to continue this: making a purpose-full effort to choose people over my screen.

We are setting the example for the next generation. Let’s make it a good one.

How are you going to join me?