Don’t miss the scenic route
By: Rochelle Abeywardena
Tags: Urban Life, Connect, Technology, Presence, Wellbeing

Don’t miss the scenic route

4 years ago I was living in London. One day after my law lectures, I took the train from London Waterloo, where my university was to Surbiton in Greater London, where I lived at the time.

I took the train around 6 pm, which meant it was peak time and the train was packed with people hurrying to get home.

Here’s what I noticed and still to this day quite vividly remember. Everyone in the train carriage was glued to their phones, up until the very moment they had to get off, apart from me. I was looking outside the window to catch a glimpse of the charming little towns and the scenic route that the train was travelling in.

Apart from this, nothing exciting or strange happened during that 40 minute train ride and I wonder why the sight left a lasting impression on me.

This actually shouldn’t be surprising to me because this happens all the time. After all we are living in digital centric society.

I have always considered myself old-fashioned as far many things are concerned. I listen to old songs, instead of new ones. Prefers to read paperback books rather than on kindle or via the phone and most times I find myself utterly confused and lost when I have to fix a glitch in my phone or laptop and end up always needing help from anyone who is more tech savvy than myself.

It is true that the digital age has connected us in ways we couldn’t have imagined years ago. Communication today transcends borders, countries and continents and its benefits are countless.

Using phones is not the problem at all, but using phones when we shouldn’t use them is the problem and here’s why.

Many of us have experienced dinner gatherings or coffee evenings jarred by the beeps and buzzing of nearby phones. The alerts are irritating enough, but even more so when text and calls are answered by the person sitting opposite us.

At the outset, this kind of behavior might come across as slightly rude or disrespectful, but when you dig deeper, the realization that comes forth is that most of us are victims to a habit and now that habit is programmed into our psyche, influencing our behavior and social interactions.

If you are at dinner by yourself or if it’s an actual emergency then by all means go ahead and use your phone. If you really have to take that call and refusing to answer would mean potential adverse effects like losing a deal with a client or getting fired, you can always practice excusing yourself to go outside or to another room.

When we are using our phone while we are at dinner with a partner, friend, family or a colleague, the subtle and subconscious message that we are transmitting is that this device I’m looking at right now is more important to me than you.

Of course I have done this too. The temptation to check that notification is a hard one to resist.

Domino effect?

Have you ever been at a dinner with a friend, and the person you’re with checks their phone and you do the same thing, even though you don’t need to but just because you don’t know what to do with yourself during those few minutes that your friend is sort of busy?

If this behavior is prompted by a domino effect, then putting our phones away can in turn create a positive domino effect. In a recent research published by the journal of Experimental Social Psychology, it was revealed that the people who used phone while having a face-to-face interaction enjoyed the interaction less than the people who had been face-to-face with another person without a phone.

This is true of meetings at work too. As soon as we sit around the table and one person picks up their phones, a few seconds later you will see that everyone is staring at their phones instead of having conversations with each other. I think it’s safe to say that face-to-face communication in the workplace is becoming a thing of the past and now accentuated by the pandemic and the concept of Work from Home.

Texting vs. face to face communication

More than 90% of human communication entails body language. The best part of face to face communication is the instant feedback and response we get translated through a multi-sensory experience. Tone of the voice, facial expressions, bodily cues, eye contact, drawing on memories, making mental images and associations, humour, empathy, looking out for the unspoken cues as well as the spoken are all so much more powerful in real life to build trust and connect. It’s also a more accurate way to find out how they are feeling. After all emojis can only reveal so much.

Communicating and connecting with others through face-to-face discussion should be cherished because it is not something that can be edited, paused or replayed.

I personally feel that we shouldn’t go too many days without making eye-contact with another person (not in a creepy way of course).

The flipside of this is that there are many who would value online communication because they can express themselves in ways they might find difficult through a face-to-face conversation, but it’s a matter of overcoming ourselves and getting into the practice of having more face to face communication. Like with all things, with practice and intention, it only gets easier and you get better at what you thought you’re not good at.

While acknowledging that technology is created to connect us, it’s better to use with caution and in moderation because to really connect with another person or commit to our goals, we have to be aware of our habits and move away from our distractions even for a while. Even if you’re spending 2 minutes out of the 24 hours with another human being, making it count by giving them your presence.

Today a microscopic organism has shaken the entire world and has thrown most of us into isolation and lockdowns. This means that fostering deeper and meaningful connections and relationships with those around us are becoming more vital than ever.

We need to curb our desire and need to find out what’s going on elsewhere and become present with what’s happening right there in front of us.

In the words of James Baldwin, we are each other’s only hope and the best thing we can give each other is our presence, so then to really connect we have to disconnect.