Be All There: A Message to My Disconnected Generation

About a week ago, when my husband and I were at a restaurant in Wichita, I noticed a scene that to me summed up the changes in the past few generations:
At the table close to us, two girls in their early 20s were sitting across from each other. They were texting and taking pictures for Snapchat and Instagram while not speaking a word to each other. At the booth just down from them, two ladies in their 60s were laughing and having a great conversation. No phones were visible on their table.

Which pair do you think was having a better time? Which will leave with a stronger relationship?

I posted the above scenario on Facebook not long ago, and a friend added her own story. She saw a young couple who appeared to be on their honeymoon. They were dressed up for dinner on the cruise ship–and the brand-new husband was staring at his phone instead of his beautiful bride.

How disconnected have we become that so much of our “together time” is spent emotionally apart as we gaze at our devices? A new word has even been coined for the phenomenon: phubbing. Snubbing people with your phone. We’ve all been on the receiving end of phubbing, and many of us have (I hope inadvertently) been guilty of committing this flagrant act of discourtesy.

So is there a solution to the problem?

Of course. Put the devices down when you’re having a conversation with someone else. Treat that person as if he or she is the most important person in the world (rather than second to whomever you’re texting, or third to your Instagram followers, or fourth to your Facebook friends). Don’t be a better Facebook friend than you are a friend in real life.

Is that going to happen? Realistically, probably not, unless our disconnected generation has a major change of heart and mind. It will take seeing others as more important than the polish on our online images. It will require perhaps some boldness in challenging others when they are rude simply because it has become their way of life. The change will take us being humble enough to see our own mistakes.

Not long ago, a mother posted on Facebook her simple experiment with her little boys.

Here’s what she had to say:

“As I sat quietly in the corner of the room I tallied how many times they looked at me for various reasons: to see if I saw their cool tricks, to seek approval or disapproval for what they were doing, and to watch my reactions. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was on some sort of technology what message would I have been sending? 28 times my angels would have wondered if the World Wide Web was more important than them. 28 times my boys would have not received the attention most adults are searching for. 28 times my loves would have questioned if they were alone emotionally. 28 times my kids would have been reassured that who you are online is what really matters. In a world where we are accepted as who people perceive us to be and not who we really are, in a world where validation comes from how many followers or likes we have, in a world where quality time with loved ones is being replaced by isolation and text messages from the other room, I beg you to be different. Please put down your technology and spend some time with your family & loved ones. The next generation of children is counting on us to teach them how to be adults, don’t be too busy on social media, you never know who is watching and what message you are sending.” (Read the whole story here.)

So maybe we should stop worrying about our entire generation and just focus on making the small changes in our own households. To quote missionary martyr Jim Elliot: “Wherever you are, be all there!”

(This post was originally published on my older blog, Just Beyond Home, on March 3, 2016.)