Countless times I have been with friends and have been in deep con­ver­sa­tion when they whip out their phones and start tex­ting some­one else.

I sup­pose there’s a part of me that finds this nor­mal and not offen­sive, but still, is my con­ver­sa­tion that bor­ing? Is this other per­son more impor­tant and more inter­est­ing than I am? Honestly, yeah, they prob­a­bly are, but still, what hap­pened to being in the moment with someone?

I think our gen­er­a­tion is start­ing to take our rela­tion­ships for granted. We don’t value human inter­ac­tion any­more. We can eas­ily just pick up our phones and be con­nected with another per­son, so when we are actu­ally phys­i­cally with them it’s not as mean­ing­ful. What’s this mean for our rela­tion­ships? Are we bet­ter friends because of tech­nol­ogy or just bet­ter at pre­tend­ing to care?

We can now stay con­nected with friends and fam­ily on lit­er­ally a sec­ond by sec­ond basis, which can strengthen or threaten rela­tion­ships. If we know every­thing about every­one all the time, does it impact our phys­i­cal interactions?

When we are present with one another, do we have much to talk about or do we just go through the motions of meet­ing in per­son to feel like we are con­nect­ing? Maybe that’s why when we are with friends it is so easy to get dis­tracted by other peo­ple who aren’t present with us yet are still demand­ing our attention.

I do think we can keep our abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate in per­son with one another, but we need to be con­scious of our interactions.

Recently, I have begun to leave my phone behind when I go to the gro­cery store or to class. I know it’s ter­ri­fy­ing to be with­out that piece of plas­tic for an hour, but I have found my time with­out my phone refresh­ing. I am more aware of the peo­ple around me and actu­ally con­sume myself with what they are talk­ing about. I believe my rela­tion­ships have strength­ened because of my brief moments dis­con­nected from technology.

I don’t think every­one needs to throw their phones away and swear off tech­nol­ogy. Let’s face it, our gen­er­a­tion would be com­pletely lost with­out it. However, we need to start being in the moment and car­ing about the peo­ple we are with.

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