#1199 The End May be Near
I took Baily, my amazing pup, for a long walk through the neighborhood. I saw an empty school bus pass us by heading toward the end of the development we were walking. I figured it was going on it’s rounds to pick up the kids at the various stops. There is no exit out so I knew that once it had its cargo it would turn around and pass us by. Kids on a bus are always full of energy when they get picked up, greeting one another, laughing and generally being unruly. Bailey is a big white goofy pup so I was looking forward to the kids seeing him and the waves I’d get from a bunch of goofy middle-schoolers when they got to us.
Boy was I wrong. What’s the opposite of unruly? I don’t know, dead? It was like a morgue in there. Every single one of those kids was face down in their phones with blank expressions throughout. I didn’t see a smile – let alone a conversation, laughter or the waves I’d hoped for.
It broke my heart. How do you get on a bus with twenty other kids your age and not have the bus driver yell at you to settle down? How do you get on a bus with twenty of your friends and ignore them? What kind of adults will these phone-faced, boring brats become?
Suburban kids scrolling mindless content may be as significant an addiction as Meth is in the rust belt.
If you look at Harvard study and dozens of others, the number one predictor of long, healthy lives is the quality of one’s relationships. This is not some old dude eschewing technology and nostalgically longing for the old days. This is science.
These kids are in trouble. I predict the pendulum will swing the other way soon. There’s too much science to ignore. Despite the ubiquity of technology, I believe community will rise from the ashes as people look for ways to combat the epidemic-like rise of mental health issues. People need people and eventually that need will assert itself and become a movement.
Don’t wait for it to happen, get out in front. Have phoneless dinners with friends. Put the screens away when your with your family. Be where you are and with who you’re with.
Go ahead and look up information and have Siri make your appointment and set reminders. Take and share pics with your friends and laugh at videos of pet antics. And make human to human contact an imperative in your life.