I asked my eldest yesterday how many of his middle school friends had cell phones. He said, “All of them, daddy.” Somehow I was still surprised by the statement. It didn’t matter that the hallways of my college are filled with students not talking to each other, heads hung and eyes straining to see the world that lives behind a tiny screen. The ubiquity of the cellphone is real. Also real is the social disassociation that arises as a result of it.
Google ‘cell phones and social interaction’ and it will take you to a list of sites starting with an intelligent article by psychology today discussing how cell phones are changing human social interactions. People break up by text. It sounds like a joke but it isn’t. Also real is the fact that these devices provide another layer of insulation between people that is so compelling that individuals often actively ignore the live person standing right next to them in order to dive into a more-distant and virtual relationship.
No point in asking why. It is a lot easier to deal with someone in a time frame that allows you to consider and reflect upon your responses than it is to deal with people in real time. Likewise, tone in texts can be manufactured or obscured at your whim. It is much harder to hide the body language tells of tone in a face to face interaction.
The psychology of cell phones fascinates me to no end, and I want to have more time in my life to study it. I can say this: The way we interact with each other in public spaces is changing for the more distant. We are becoming less and less comfortable with interacting with people who aren’t our close friends. As a result I feel people are becoming more isolated and less diverse.
It is a problem that needs to be studied, or at least considered sooner rather than later.