by Steve Peisch
 

When I was a teenager worrying about the world, my dad used to say, “Prophets of doom have always been wrong.” It was hard to disagree with this statement—it would kind of freeze me. Much later in life I realized, “Of course they were always wrong, because we’re still here.” Then I realized, “That doesn’t necessarily mean they will always be wrong.”

While running on a beautiful spring day, I became a prophet of doom. I realized our civilization was disintegrating because handheld electronic gadgets have become, for many or most people, more engrossing than other people. No longer can one expect a return greeting from a fellow walker or runner or gardener, because they may no longer be tuned into the day—the wind, the birds, the moment. Instead, they are apt to be tuned into some device playing their favorite music—music they have probably heard many, many times before. The simple joys of human interaction have been undermined by the allure of electronic gadgets and the comfort of repetition.

I often see people walking on similarly beautiful days. But, instead of looking around and enjoying what is happening around them or saying “Hello!”, they are often engaged in less-than-pleasant cell-phone conversations. They are going through the motions of “taking a walk,” but they could be anywhere with their microwave dialogues: they can’t take a few moments away from the electronic devices that tether them to stressful and banal concerns. This type of behavior signals the end of life as we have known it.

Recently I was watching my college-age son’s soccer game. One of his friends stood there watching, but her attention was constantly diverted by her phone, and she was constantly reading or sending text messages. Young people like this young woman could be on the ocean or in the mountains, at a soccer game or in a funeral home, yet they all feel compelled to maintain some focus on sending or receiving superficial and postliterate messages.

In 1969, Baba Ram Dass said, “Be here now!” This was a good way of encapsulating thousands of years of Hindu and Buddhist traditions that teach that “mindfulness” and “living in the moment” can bring deep satisfaction and happiness. But adolescents who have become attached to text messaging are neither “here” nor “now.” Instead, they are in a constant state of anticipation. They cannot focus on the “here and now” because their minds are preoccupied with receiving the next message from one of their friends. They are focused instead on the immediate and strikingly superficial future. We might as well forget about teaching these people to read and understand and interpret Shakespeare. The expressively profound and musical lines of this genius will never be heard inside these young persons’ minds without the backdrop of cotton-candy music and drippingly romantic or suggestive lyrics from their iPods. These lines of poetry will never be concentrated on fully without constant interruptions from their phones. And we adults sit back, shake our heads, and watch it happen more and more.

Many years ago, I asked a parent why she didn’t demand a certain behavior from her child. She replied, “I don’t have that type of relationship with my daughter.” I wanted to say, “It is never too late to say ‘No!’ to your child,” but I was too much of a coward to say so then, just as we are too cowardly now to tell the people described earlier that they are on the wrong track—that their behavior will lead us all eventually to an increasingly impersonal and fragmented world, filled with electronically saturated, distracted, and unhappy people.