Stop Ignoring People With Your Technology

Phones, headphones, and distraction, are hindrances to a better life

The unique situation we find ourselves in today is that we can ignore people with our technology.

Nowadays, we ignore people without even knowing we are ignoring them.

We walk down the street with headphones in our ears. We sit in waiting rooms and scroll on our phones.

These behaviors are not just rude, they are distracting. Literally, you are distracting yourself from the world around you.

Living in Our Heads

I don’t think it is too big of a conjecture to say that most of our anxiety, stress, and worry is a result of us living in our heads.

When you are distracted from the world, you are living in your head; when you are living in your head, you overestimate the dangers of the world.

An overlooked quality of the face-to-face conversation is that it brings both participants into the present.

Talking is an active experience. To speak well, you have to actively react and adjust your speech to the ways the person you are speaking to is reacting to your speech, and so on.

An overabundance of thought, the kind that leads to worry, is nonexistent while you are talking.

Conversation is not only an art, but one of the best things in life.

The sad reality we find ourselves in is that we have all become introverts, inadvertently from our tools of social media.

How common is it to see two young lovers at a McDonald’s table, not looking each other in the eyes, both looking at their phones?

How much better would it be for them to connect with one another, closer, rather than with someone or something faraway?

How common is it to see people with AirPods listening to music while the gym speakers are already playing music? I say, listen to your own music when you are alone.

While you are at a gym, surrounded by strangers — or potential friends — listen to the same music as everyone else.

Be in the moment!

Stop ignoring people. Stop ignoring the present.

What We Miss

As someone who had AirPods in their ears most of my time at university when I was walking to and from class, I now regret the possibilities I missed.

See, headphones are a signal to others that you don’t want to be bothered. This may be unconscious to you, but to others, they are a visible sign that you are “busy.”

Pretend you were at the park and were reading a book. Strangers would be hesitant to approach you because they believe you don’t want to be approached.

The other harm from headphones in public is that — not only do they turn others away from you; they turn you away from others.

Headphones immerse you in whatever you are listening to; and that immersion stops you from approaching others.

It’s not that listening to music and podcasts are bad so much as it is that these enjoyable things are keeping you from enjoying better things.

The better things are: possible friends, conversations, and awareness.

While it may be harder to make friends nowadays, or even talk to others, because everyone is distracted with some type of technology, it is, in some ways, easier to make friends with those who are tired of the distracted people.

By these undistracted people, I mean the people who miss the old days, the 90s, or early 2000s, where random interactions and encounters were more common.

Especially coming from two years of social isolation, from the pandemic, these people are eager to make friends.

You will notice them once you put your phone in your pocket. They are everywhere.

Awareness is a wonderful thing! The randomness of the world makes the world interesting. Anything can happen!

It is interesting to watch people, in a non-creepy way. People are strange and they do strange things. Eavesdrop on their conversations and wait for the opportunity when you have something to add to them.

Join the active world!

A Waiting Enjoyment

If you already have friends or a family, next time you eat with them, at home or at a restaurant, do a dinner with the rule: No phones at the table.

I promise you that the oddness of the dinner will soon disappear, and afterwards you will realize that it is odd to eat when everyone has a phone in their hand.

Life itself is odd when you have a phone in your hand or headphones in you ears.

Since life is always changing, always active, the opportunities are endless when you join yourself to it.

“(…) man steps out of the darkness and wasteland of preparation into active life; it is the time to show oneself, the time of fulfillment.” ― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

Michael Snellen

If this wasn’t enough, here is another article of mine: