I have been an avid people watcher for the better part of my life. Quietly, or not so quietly, watching how people interact with each other and themselves has always been something I really enjoy. More and more I see people interacting less with each other and more with themselves. Its easy to be at a party and bury yourself in your phone so you won't have to talk to the people you don't know around you. Isn't that the point of a party? Its also easy to text other people when your standing in line in oppose to making small talk with the person in front of or behind you. My other pet peeve? Listening to the iPod, on the highest volumn level, as if to say,
"PLEASE do not talk to me, can't you see I'm busy being cool/hipster?"
To be fair, I'm guilty of avoiding people with the cell phone, but not the iPod (I think iPods are the devil). Anywho, I was a smoker for a while, which helped me connect with other smokers and thus a conversation started and a bond began. I have since quit smoking so the only mechanism left is the cell phone.
I don't necessarily use it to text or even call people, I'm moreorless guilty of checking my facebook (if I have the account activated), twitter and worse...CELEBRITY GOSSIP! I'm linked to People.com, Eonline.com, Thefablife.com and dlisted.com. Scary, right?
What happens when you don't have people who text reguarly? If your like me, you stare at your phone until something happens like a high school girl waiting for that boy to call. "A watched pot doesn't boil", yeah no kidding. I figure if I stare at it, it'll ding, hum, or vibrate. If I walk away from it or turn it off, it'll ding, hum or vibrate and I'll have a special surprise waiting for me. #Failure.
Sometimes the overwhelming waiting game becomes slight sadness. I expect one person will be sweet enough to text/call me but that doesn't happen. I usually have to take the initiative and contact someone first; some times I go days without connecting with anyone via technology at all. I'd rather talk to people face-to-face for the most part; silly me for thinking that that's how the world should work. Since the relationship I have with my phone is on the brink of divorce, I have decided that we need a separation to find out if we really need each other.
I'm going to go a few days without the phone and without social networking. Ok, this is where life will start to suck. I have started to become attached to Twitter and less to Facebook. I stalk my favorite celebs in hopes that one of their 140-character tweets will contain the words "I", "love", "@MissJCartier"; I click on the linked photos just because I think it'll make us closer (but seriously Jared Followill, tweet me.) I have never used the pound sign so much in my life.
The internet is the hardest thing to separate from. Its easy to get to via my phone and I can check it EVERYWHERE I WANT!!! Sorry, I must've had a All-Caps Kanye moment.
Living without the phone for a day or two will allow me the type of detachment that everyone needs: A separation from work, not knowing the whereabouts of people who don't really care about their "followers" and not knowing the status updates of people who are your "friends", but only on a website (heaven forbid you actually talk to one another when you see each other on the street). Will this separation cause chills, night sweats, lonliness and a want to reconcile? Or will the separation give me that Baby-Boomer mentality of "I don't understand why people don't hand write letters to one another anymore. Whats a facebook?"
#Wewilljusthavetoseenowwontwe
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