Humans have been catapulted into an era where we are able to connect socially across communities, cultures, and continents. It’s quick, easy, exciting, and convenient but our real relationships are suffering from catastrophic disconnection and irreparable damage.
People are struggling to connect. We have lost the basic tools and we must address the cause. It’s so painfully evident in the dark stillness of the night when both you and the face of the person lying next to you are lit by the separate spotlights of your screens. You may be in the same house, sharing the same bed but you feel a million miles away from each other. The sad truth is that you are. And the promise you made of sharing your life together, now seems empty, distant, and unobtainable.
Or what about the family that’s out for their regular Sunday “Let’s meet for brunch at Tashas”? The intention to connect with each other after a long week is the driving force, but the reality of it is not. Everyone looks less-than-thrilled to be there, each engaged on their own device. “I’m bored,” says the teen, on level 6 of some or other downloaded game, “I must check my mail,” thoughts of the Dad intrude, “You won’t believe where Mandy and her family went on holiday”, the Mom turns her phone around to show the others. Isolated in their individual worlds, trying to connect but consuming information like breakfast. A common scenario. Just another example of the tethered family fabric unravelling and it’s stripping so many well-intentioned folks of their basic need for human engagement.
In most of our social settings these days, real conversations are so often dismissed, interrupted, or cut short. It could be a coffee date or a quick catch-up with an old friend. It doesn’t matter. When that muffled beeping notification from a handbag or the shrill on a tabletop that vibrates its way into your conversation, all connection is lost. Ears perk up, hands dive for the phone and eyes wander into another world. These automated reactions give the other person silent permission to do the same. Having been dismissed now, we check our phone too, in the hope of a missed call or message to feel re-engaged once again. Even on those more cordial occasions where we are polite enough to set our phones on ‘silent’, (a far easier alternative to switching it off and completely disconnecting from the noise and distraction of the outside world), our conversations seem to lack meaning, depth, and flow.
This mass connection of the modern day is slowly suffocating our basic need for real connection (an essential part of human survival, by the way). And if the failing connections with loved ones and friends are becoming more evident, it also begs us to review the connection with our ourselves. What about our engagement with our own thoughts and feelings? Unfortunately, with heads down, EarPods in, eyes locked and lit up and minds focused on scrolling through reams of news feeds, Instagram videos, Facebook posts, audiobooks, and podcasts, there’s simply no room for that. Thoughts are shoved aside, feelings are frozen, and our learning, growth and progress stagnate. We feel angry, frustrated, irritable and lonely. Soon enough anxiety and depression take their seats and we can’t seem to figure out why.
The truth is we cannot just jump off this fast-moving train, but we do need to be conscious enough to slow it down for ourselves, and for our families, friends, and associates. We need to find the balance. Here are a few ways to start:
1. Make plans to meet up with someone, instead of calling or sending a message.
2. Make it a priority to have a face-to-face conversation with someone you love or don’t even know (without checking on your phone once).
3. When engaged in conversation, you don’t always have to satisfy the urge ‘to look it up’ on your phone, show them the picture, check the time, confirm the date or show them the message. Keep your phone out of it.
4. Sit in silence (that doesn’t mean setting your phone on silent and scrolling through it). Try listening to your heartbeat, your breath, the sounds around you, your thoughts, and your feelings.
5. Take a walk (without EarPods) and listen to the sounds of nature. It helps to first listen to your thoughts before trying to understand them.
6. Make it a daily ritual of doing something simple that makes your soul smile (water your plants, throw the ball for your dog, draw, write, cook a delicious meal).
7. Engage in solo activities that you love (run, hike, swim, stretch, listen to music, play the piano/guitar).
8. Pay attention to your thoughts and feelings (especially your triggers). Name them, write them down, don’t hide, mask or run away from them. It’s the first step in accepting them.
