It’s Okay to Put Your Phone Down

People would rather be on their phones than engage with other people

Photo by Tyler Lastovich on Unsplash

I’m sitting in a coffee shop right now that overlooks a busy four-way stop at an intersection. I keep seeing people drive by, and as they roll to a stop, they look down at their phones, only to let off the brake and continue on their merry way, sometimes with their phone still in hand.

All I can think is, “Why, for crying out loud, is it so necessary to check your phone for two seconds?!” But then I remember that this is not the only situation where this behavior occurs, and smartphone addiction isn’t exactly a recent development. I recently wrote about deactivating my Facebook account because of how it interfered with my daily life, but I think the issue goes even further than that.

I see this problem every day with my students in the classroom. If you haven’t been around a school lately, I’ll paint you a picture: droves of teenagers walking down a hallway, most with their earbuds in while looking down at their phones. I take delight in stepping in front of them just so they can awkwardly bump into me because they aren’t paying the least bit of attention. “You shouldn’t text and walk,” I tell them half-laughing, half-serious, but they can’t hear me. Even worse, I see some students in the classroom who have a compulsive…