Drop and Step Away from the Phone

I will begin by owning up to the fact that I don’t like phones. I didn’t like them when they were black and sat on a desk and I still didn’t like them when they came in colors and hung on the wall. A ringing phone is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. And I just hate talking on a phone. With that clarified let me begin my latest phone rant.

As far as I am concerned, cell phones are a great technological advance. As little as I like talking on a phone, you can imagine how I felt about pulling into a parking lot, getting out of my car, fishing out some change and making a call from a payphone. If you are too young to know what a payphone is, go ask your mother.

In many ways it is not the cell phones that I resent; it is how rude and disrespectful we are in way we use cell phones. It is like my cell phone is the center of my life; the most important thing in my life. If one leaves home without one’s cell phone it is common practice to go home to retrieve it. Not I. A cell phone left at home in the morning stays at home. I am pretty sure it will be okay without me. And I am sure I can do without it.

Since my early twenties I have had the policy that if I am busy, my phone is busy. If I am involved in something that requires my undivided attention or if I am involved in an activity or conversation with another human being then the phone will have to wait. Why is it that so many people seem to think that a ringing phone, a phone call, takes precedent over anything else? Look at it like this – we are sitting together at the lunch table. Someone sends you a text or calls you. You immediately break off the conversation, drop eye contact, forget that anyone else is not the room and concentrate your time and energy into responding to the person who is not presently with you. What you have said to those of us at the table with you, by your actions, is that we are of no importance to you. Or we are, at least, not as important as the person contacting you on your personal electronic device.

When cell phones first crept into Sunday morning worship service I would encourage people to turn their phones off during worship. I told the congregation, “If you are the emergency surgeon on call with the ER this morning, feel free to leave your phone on. If not, turn it off.” When a phone would ring and disrupt the service I would suggest that the owner just answer the call and not say anything. Just keep the line open and allow the caller to enjoy the sermon.

From the way we are slaves to our cell phones, you would think that it is a national security issue that we be available to be contacted 24/7. We act as if it would be a near disaster if we were to miss a single call. Let’s be honest here, none of us are as important as we imagine ourselves to be. Most of our conversations aren’t as important and pressing as we’d like to believe. It is my observation that humankind managed to function for thousands of years without cell phones? A couple of decades ago they hit the market and only the rich carried them. But the price came down and the service improved and suddenly everyone has one and seems to believe the world will collapse if someone is unable to contact us for a few minutes.

We all know that a vast majority of our conversations can wait. And if the conversation can’t wait, then take the call and go away. If it is that important, what you were doing when you fielded the call can wait. If not, skip the call. Oh, yes, I know, you can multitask. But sometimes, in life, we have to make choices. Do things one at a time. Not everything can be crammed into the same moment.

I’ve heard people justify this behavior by insisting that often you have to be on the phone. It could be an emergency. Okay, if it is an emergency why are you still sitting at the table with me? Besides, how many emergencies does the average person really experience? Of all the conversations you have on your phone, how many of them are important, much less an emergency? Let me define that for us. Important: of much or great significance and consequence.

I would challenge you to recall your last ten phone calls and then scan through the list of your most recent incoming calls, your text messages, your emails, your voicemails, your Facebook likes and your Tweets. How many of them were of great consequence? Of all our almost constant talking and texting and posting, how much of it is important or significance? If you were generous you might say two or three percent. Think of it another way: how many of them HAD to be handled AT THAT EXACT MOMENT, even if it meant being a rude to the people who you were with?

I fully realize that you don’t realize you are being rude. But you are. You are caught up in reading a text or a tweet or fielding a call and you have shut everyone and everything else out. You are so in the moment with your phone you have lost contact with the people around you and how your behavior might be affecting them.

Some people have made the observation that we are addicted to our electronic devices. Such an observation doesn’t normally get much traction. But when you realize that an addiction occurs when one’s interaction with a thing (drugs, alcohol, gambling, and pornography) takes priority over a relationship or interaction with other people, it becomes frightfully obvious that many of us display symptoms of being addicted to our electronic devices.

So, for your own good, put your phone down. That call or text can wait. Somehow, whoever’s on the other line will find a way to carry on with his or her life, even if momentarily deprived of the privilege of hearing your voice or sharing their “awesome” news via text. If it is really important, they will call back. I know. My wife does all the time.

Copyright © 2014, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved