Do you think you are paying attention to the surrounding people? Or are you distracted by your phone? And if you analyze, are other people around you also distracted by it?
Teenagers now have the idea that it is able to split the attention, and look at people in the eye and also look at the phone at the same time. They also believe that they mastered this skill the moment that they texted during class without getting caught. And with this skill, now they are able to talk and text at the same time.
A study by the Pew Research Center found that 89 percent of cellphone users said that they used their phones during the last party and social event they attended. Around 82 percent of the adults felt that the way they used their phones in social settings hurt the conversation.
Now social interactions are diminishing, people prefer to text rather than to meet up and discuss a topic. People also sit to eat lunch with their phones in hand, and they ignore the food they have in front of them. And even more complicated, they ignore the people sitting in front of them. So basically, phones are distracting everyone.
This is a topic that should be discussed and paid attention to. It is worrying how from such a young age, kids have phones, and they easily get distracted by them. Kids now carry their phones everywhere, it is more likely that someone leaves the house without keys than without their phones. Phones are not just an accessory, they are now necessary on a daily basis, to communicate, distract and interact with others. People create codependency on their phones, now they include all the data for their life. An example, agendas are now in their phones, the calendars are in their phones, the calculators are in their phones. So they have the excuse to be constantly on their phones, while they are surrounded by others.
To sum everything that has been stated, phones are distracting us. Phones are now taking our time for social interactions and distracting us from paying attention to the people surrounding us. So maybe it is necessary to reflect on how we are using our time and how it is affecting our time with others.
