“In Finding Your Transformative Life, I wrote that transformation begins when we become fully present in our own lives. The challenge is that modern technology has given us access to the entire world while simultaneously distracting us from the one place we’re actually standing.“
I was sitting at a traffic light the other day when I noticed something fascinating. The light turned green. Nothing happened. Five seconds passed. Still nothing. Ten seconds. Finally, the car in front of me moved. The reason? The driver was busy finishing whatever life-altering emergency was taking place on their phone.
Perhaps they were saving the stock market. Maybe they were negotiating world peace. Or maybe, and I know this sounds crazy, they were watching a video of a raccoon stealing a sandwich. We’ll never know.
What I do know is that green lights have apparently become optional suggestions while notifications remain mandatory. And that’s when I realized something. Most of us aren’t living our lives anymore. We’re living life twelve seconds at a time.
Have you ever watched people walk through a store? Not shop. Just walk. Straight down the aisle with their eyes glued to a screen, completely unaware of the displays, the shelves, the signs, or occasionally the giant pallet directly in front of them.
I’ve seen people nearly walk into endcaps. I’ve seen people stop in the middle of an aisle without warning. I’ve watched shopping carts slowly drift sideways like unmanned boats because their captain was busy scrolling through social media.
The truly gifted can somehow text, push a cart, drink coffee, and remain completely unaware of their surroundings all at the same time. It’s a skill. Not a useful skill. But a skill. Of course, that brings us to another modern phenomenon: the conversation that simply cannot wait. You know the one.
The person who walks into a store while talking on their phone and proceeds to continue the conversation for the next fifteen minutes. Every shopper, every employee, and possibly every security camera in the building becomes an unwilling participant.
Suddenly the entire store knows that Karen from accounting is lazy, your cousin borrowed money again, somebody’s boyfriend is in trouble, and your aunt apparently said something at Thanksgiving that we’re still discussing three years later.
The best part is when they suddenly lower their voice and whisper one sentence. Now everyone within fifty feet is trying to figure out what was just said. Who is the idiot? Who got arrested? Who exactly were they referring to when they called someone that name? The entire store immediately becomes a detective agency.
Younger generations probably wonder what happened before cell phones. Did people simply hold their thoughts for twenty minutes? Did they wait until they got home? Did they somehow survive the unbearable hardship of not immediately sharing every detail of every event with another human being?
They’ll never know. But for those of us who do, the answer to all is…Yes!
Then there are the restaurant conversations. Or what used to be conversations. Two people sit across from each other at a table. Neither is speaking. Both are scrolling. Every now and then one glances up and says, “Uh huh,” before returning to whatever crisis is unfolding on social media.
At that point, why even go out to dinner? You could save money, stay home, sit in separate rooms, and text each other. Apparently we’re halfway there already.
My personal favorite is watching groups of friends standing together. Five people. Six people. Maybe ten. Every single one staring at a different screen. Nobody talking. Nobody interacting. Everyone connected to the world and disconnected from the people standing three feet away.
It’s almost impressive.
Humanity spent thousands of years inventing communication tools so we could talk to one another. Then we perfected them and stopped talking. Now before anyone sends me an angry message from their phone, I’m not innocent either.
I have one. I use it. I text. I search things. I answer emails. I even write ideas for future Chronicle articles on it. The phone itself isn’t the problem. The problem is when the phone becomes more interesting than the life happening around us.
When a sunset competes with a notification. When a conversation competes with a text message. When a family dinner competes with whatever drama is currently trending online. The phone wins far more often than it should.
The irony is that we carry around devices capable of connecting us to nearly every piece of information in human history. Yet somehow we still walk into displays at Walmart.
Think about that.
A device containing more knowledge than the computers that sent astronauts to the moon… Defeated by a pallet of paper towels. Maybe that’s why so many people feel disconnected today. Not because we’re alone. Not because we lack information. Not because we lack entertainment. But because we’re rarely fully present. We’re always somewhere else. Thinking about the next notification. The next message. The next video. The next update.
The next twelve seconds.
Meanwhile life keeps happening right in front of us. The light turns green. The conversation moves on. The moment passes. And we never even looked up. So if you happen to see someone standing in a store aisle staring at their phone, don’t judge them too harshly. They’re probably just participating in the greatest social experiment in human history.
The rest of us are too. Just watch where you’re walking. That display isn’t checking its notifications.
Troy P Zehnder 