IM:310 — Bailey Oratorical Reflection Blog Post
The Bailey Oratorical brings out some of the best speeches, ideas, and solutions students at our campus have to offer. Every year they are tasked with a prompt that can be interpreted in many ways and cause a wide variety of topics. This year’s prompt was, “From your perspective, what issue or condition needs to be addressed for individuals and communities to reach their full potential for health and well-being?”
This prompt allowed students to angle their opinions and ideas so that it impacted all who were listening. Every time I watch or attend the Bailey’s, I always judge based on, did that impact me in some way. The person who I thought did this the best was Dan Cummins, the winner of this year’s Bailey’s. I also might be a little bias on my judgment because Dan is one of my 4 roommates currently, so I was rooting for him anyway, but I truly believe he had the best speech that impacted those who were listening.
Dan talked about how we are addicted to our phones, and the impact it has on us independently, and as a community. There was a line that stuck with me throughout the entire speech and also into the days following and that was, “3.25 hours per day on your phone, equals 10 years of your lifetime at 70 years old.” I never thought of the time being spent this way, but looking at it from a “30,000 foot” view, I am amazed at how much time this actually is. He goes on to talk about how this time could be better spent with older family members, searching for a partner, and creating a family. Ten years is a significant amount of time to be spent looking at our phones, and I agree with Dan that that time could be spent doing much better things that one day we may regret.
He also compares our phones to drugs like heroin and methamphetamine. Saying the dopamine our brain releases when it comes into contact with these drugs mirrors that of when we pick up our phones. I’ve always thought that dopamine we got from our phones was from likes and positive feedback on social media, I didn’t think of it as every time we pick up our phones, we get that dopamine hit.
I also really liked when he brought up situations that happen every day down in the cafeteria. You walk past a table and everyone there is buried in their phones. No social communication, no face-to-face conversations, people that aren’t living in the moment. It’s pretty crazy to see how much of this there is. I really liked his point here because it’s something I try to avoid as much as possible. When I’m with friends or family, I try to avoid time on my phone as much as possible. I think that time should be spent connecting with others, and actually making emotional connections instead of digital ones.
For a solution to this addiction, Dan proposed taking some of this everyday phone time, and meditating instead. I have never tried meditating, but after hearing his speech I might give it a shot. If it provides all of these positive health benefits, then it should have a place in our daily routines. He said that replacing one hour per day of “phone time” with meditating, will get you three years back on your life. That is a significant portion of the 10 years he proposed earlier. This time is vital to our physical and mental health.
Overall, I thought all the students had compelling speeches that were well thought out and helpful to our community. I thought the judges did a great job deciding who the top-3 contestants were. I enjoyed Lillian’s speech and I thought she deserved the second-place finish. Even though I may be bias since Dan is a roommate of mine, I thought he won by a landslide. His connection to his speech was easy to see, and he captured the audience’s attention. Like I said earlier, his speech was one that impacted the people that heard it, he caused each and every person to reflect on their cell-phone time and think about their choices going forward.
