Nostalgia?
Yesterday, I thought back to the time when everyone of the people I know, myself included, used to have these tiny little cell phones with a colorless small screen, which was only used to call someone, mostly in cases of “emergency” or shoot someone a textmessage which did not contain more than an “important” information. When I thought about the limited space we had for writing textmessages I had to smile. I remembered how often I tried really hard to figure out how to keep the content of what I actually wanted to say as short as possible and how I usually failed. I came up with tricks like not leaving a space between single words to use the limited space up to the fullest, well.. I have never been good at only saying what is most necessary. Therefore I actually should be happy about the endless opportunities we have for communication today. Most people use Whats App for daily communication or the facebook messenger and countless other Apps for this matter. To be honest, most of the time I enjoy having a medium such as Whats App and the Messenger, but especially yesterday and even in some earlier situations in my life, the excessive use of those mediums makes me think. Yes, I even wonder how we were able to live without such kind of things? Or better, without technology on a level we live on today?! Although, I am aware that it was perfectly possible.
The reason for why I had to think about this kind of past yesterday, was a woman I met in the locker-room of the gym. She was talking on such a phone I previously described. It immediately caught my attention, because it is something one simply sees once in a blue moon, it is almost antique. Even though it is not as long ago that we all had such phones, to me it seems as if ages had passed. Maybe because today, everywhere you go you see people staring at their smart phones. And what strikes me the most; even children do that! Usually I notice it when I use some sort of public transportation, they sit next to each other, each stearing at their screen and not talking to each other…so sad.
Consequently, while I was doing my work-out I was thinking about this womans life, how she walks the streets not staring at her phone (what would there be to stare at anyway?), maybe using it twice a day, having to charge it maybe once a week and just care about stuff that is way more important than her “stupid” phone. She might even be one of these people who freak out, nearly having a heart attack if they accidentally hit the internet button, remeber?!?! I came to the conclusion that she simply perceives her surroundings differently from all the people who use their smart phones on a daily basis.
Finally this made me ask myself whether I should be jealous at her or not? As I already mentioned I enjoy the oppotunity to use Whats App and for this reason being able to communicate with friends from all over the world easily, but I often hate myself for staring at my phone very often and for feeling uncomplete when I forget my phone at home! Already in the morning it is the first thing I touch just to turn off the alarm that wakes me up to start the day. Luckily, I am not yet one of those people who stares at her phone while I meet up with a friend or a group of them, in moments like this I am able to forget that I even owe a phone, but when I am walking by myself I seem to be attachet to this stupid little thing, I even stare at it if I just want to know what time it is….and I DO HAVE A WATCH! Lately, I notice this behavior more often wherefore I have already talked to friends about this sort of problem and lots of them feel the same way. But none of us seems to be able to legitly change something about this sort of behavior. I wonder what made us so dependend on such a device or why we seem to not being able to function without it aymore? At least it seems to be the case what I truly find sad and it makes me wonder how this will continue being in the future….
