You arrive at the meeting.
You smile and welcome each other.
You take off your coat.
Sit down.
And immediately put your phone on the table right in front of you.
Familiar sequence? You’re not alone – I guess 90% of meetings start with these exact steps nowadays. Business meetings, family dinners, dates, get-togethers with friends – there’s hardly an exception. Somehow that small, inanimate object became a quasi-extension of our body in an incredibly short period of time.
And the phone never just lies there. It’s a constant distractor. It buzzes, it flashes, it rings. New notifications, new emails, new texts, new likes, new messages arrive and angrily demand our attention. And more often than not, they succeed.
That small buzz is sometimes just as effective in seizing our attention as a loud siren. We just cannot let it go. We must know what’s happening immediately.
So we pick it up not to miss anything.
We pick it up, even when it’s silent. Maybe that silence is suspicious. What’s happening, what am I missing?
We pick it up when we’re bored momentarily. When someone else is speaking and we think we can go by unnoticed.
We even pick it up unconsciously. Maybe, that is the most alarming part. We don’t even realize we’re doing this anymore.
I’ve been observing this phenomenon for some time now – in others and myself as well. Because I know I’m no exception. And the irony is that the more attention I paid to this, the more I realized I absolutely HATED it when people did this to me.
It’s rude, it’s annoying, it’s unprofessional. I wonder whether what I’m saying is boring. I wonder what’s more important. Whether they would rather be somewhere else. Which of course, led me to the realization that I’m a hypocrite because I do the same to others. They must find it annoying as well.
Even if it’s not a clear sore point for you, the constant distraction of phones affects us all. According to research, it very much affects our brain, focus, and cognitive abilities. As we’ve already established, multitasking is a myth – it doesn’t work.
With that said, I really don’t want to overdramatize this. Technology is a wonderful thing – it can make us more informed, more knowledgeable, more connected. But sometimes I wonder whether it also makes us sacrifice things that would be important.
I don’t want to completely give up my phone. But I don’t want to lose important moments and real social connections either. I don’t want to make others feel they are not important. I don’t want to lose the ability to listen and enjoy the moment. I don’t want to trade physical experiences for virtual ones.
So nowadays I’m trying really hard to leave my phone in the bag when I’m meeting someone. I try to remind myself that I probably won’t miss anything important. Emails can wait. Instagram can wait. My online friends can wait.
It may be such a small, mundane thing, but if you start paying attention to this phenomenon, you’ll realize how important it can be. I know I did.
Technology is here to stay. It’s a new reality and we gotta get used to it. But that doesn’t mean we cannot find the balance. A more conscious and mindful use of technology starts with small steps like this.
