Normal

Read this morning on Bluesky:

People complain about others’ phone use but honestly, if you’re somewhere sort of waiting, seems almost suspect to others if you’re not on a phone or talking to people. I realized that at [a conference] a couple of weeks ago. People will look at you funny if you’re not tapping away.

“Is that person sitting around, looking at others, taking in the scenery? Trying to live in the moment & take in the scenery? Ugh! Weirdo!!” - - Emily Langerholc, author: Guide to Teachable Features in Popular Music 

I had to sit with that a minute. Cell phone use has become so prevalent that a person not “killing time” on their phone sticks out. And not in a good way. 

When we talk about getting phones out of schools - - and I think we should - - we need to realize that we will then be asking young people to do something that most of us don’t do ourselves. It won’t feel “normal” to them. Are there ways that we as adults can shape our own behavior in order to make it more comfortable to be phoneless in public spaces?

What are we going to do so that young people can successfully transition away from phone dependence at school? The old “do as I say and not as I do” isn’t going to work here, at least not if we hope to bring about lasting and meaningful change.

What the original poster wrote made me think about another challenge we have in Howard County. In 2022 I wrote a piece called Making Better Choices. It begins like this:

The sight of the man troubled me, somehow. As I turned into the Walgreen’s parking lot I took a second look. No, there wasn’t anything alarming about his appearance. What was bothering me?

He was walking. He was coming from further down Twin Knolls, where there’s a funeral home, a hotel, and a variety of small offices. He was clearly headed to Walgreen’s. Why did the sight of him stand out so much to me?

Because he was walking along the grassy side of the road. There’s no sidewalk there.

I’ve had this experience more than once over the years, where merely the act of someone walking along the road made them look out of place. Sketchy, even. Did their car break down? Are they a panhandler, homeless? 

But it’s not the person who’s wrong. It’s the sidewalks that are missing.

The focus of that piece was the need to invest in the infrastructure to support easy walkability. Without it, someone choosing to walk in such a car centric community sticks out - - and not in a good way. But it’s not just about adding more sidewalks. It’s also about asking ourselves: what are we going to do in order to  successfully transition away from car dependence? 

It’s silly, of course, to say “Those young people should walk more,” if we ourselves don’t chose to walk and our community continues to make walking both difficult and inconvenient. (If not downright dangerous.) And sometimes something as simple as seeing more people out walking would us feel more comfortable about choosing to walk, too. 

The old “do as I say and not as I do” isn’t going to work here, at least not if we hope to bring about lasting and meaningful change.

To be honest, I have sometimes brought both a book and a spiral notebook and pen to doctor’s appointments in an attempt to buck the trend and still find myself sucked into my phone. If we want to help young people get free of unhealthy phone dependence and reconnect with education and relationships and all the other joys of life, what will we be doing to support that?

What if we need to make the investment in our own lives - -  to “build more sidewalks” as it were - - to facilitate engagement and being present for our kids? Getting phones out of the classroom cannot be accomplished in a vacuum. Laying it all on teachers is adding yet another burden to the already insurmountable portfolio of responsibilities that we keep piling on them.

The next time you go any place where you will be expected to wait, look around. If you were to read, or knit, or just simply sit quietly and look around, would you clearly be bucking the trend? How would that make you feel?

If we want to encourage people to buck the trend, what are we doing to make that possible?

Village Green/Town² Comments