I can still see you…

She absent-mindedly unlocks her phone, her left thumb pressing the 4-digit number that is inscribed in her memory. She doesn’t realize that she is tuned out of the conversation with me. I am sitting across her on the other side of the table looking at her face while she is looking down at her phone. Skip to a few seconds back.
We are eating breakfast and I engage in small talk. I ask her, “What’s the plan for this weekend?”
In response, she looks down and unlocks her phone. Her mind has switched from my question to something or someone in the phone with whom she would like to spend the weekend. Or so I think. She spends a few seconds with her mobile phone, looking at WhatsApp and Facebook. Then she looks back at me and says, “Nothing much, I am planning to stay at home all weekend and rest.”
The above lines are just a quick snapshot of one instance. Over the past few months, I have been in many such places where I see people absent-mindedly unlock their phone, open WhatsApp, scroll through the recent chats, close WhatsApp, check mail, scroll up and down, out of mail, lock phone.
I don’t know if I am doing it too. Maybe I am doing it and I am as unaware of my actions as other people. It feels so mental. It’s like a disease. Instead of focusing on the person sitting right across and losing the opportunity to engage in a wonderful conversation, we are randomly getting lost in the digital world. It’s like you are in a parallel universe, only that you are physically not, you are very much sitting in the same place and people can still see you.
Is it a coping mechanism to deal with the work and personal life stress? Or are we losing our sanity gradually? I don’t have an exact answer but I find it very distasteful and sad. Are we not satisfied and happy with our job? Do we lack love, affection and companionship in life? How do people reach this place in their lives where they don’t smile anymore unless in front of a boss or to impress someone?
The eyes have lost their luster, the brightness and is replaced by dullness and hopelessness or even worse cunningness. I still come across people who smile and unintentionally look happy, but most of these people are in the range of 0 to 10 years. I spend a lot of my personal time with these people and they help me maintain my sanity and keep me from getting sucked into this lack-of-liveliness; lost-in-phone disease.
