Throw That Phone Away

Walking across the bridge this morning, a girl on a blue bicycle whizzed by me and it wasn't until she'd passed that I realized that she said, "Passing on your left." I called to her, "I didn't hear you," to which she yelled something over her shoulder. I yelled an apology and she yelled from a further distance. I yelled again, "I'm sorry." To which she promptly flipped me off. I kept walking, the girl speeding away to her destination and hopefully a better day. 

I didn't feel particularly engaged with people I passed on my route through Washington Park. Often, people will dead-stare straight ahead or keep their faces hidden behind sunglasses, noses stuck in phones. Sometimes, just for shits and giggles, I say hello. Often, people will respond, almost surprised by the interruption. But today I said nothing, just looked at the devices people held.

The girl with the knob on the back of her phone intently watched something on the screen. Then there was the guy who wore the little white ear things that look like some new kind of earrings, no wires attached to a phone in a pocket. As he walked by me, looked me in the eye, I briefly questioned whether he was talking to me or not. Not.

It got me to thinking about the cracked screen on my phone. I try to hold on to my phone but, on occasion it will fall out of my hands. Thank God for my Otterbox. But here's the deal, when the New York Times breaks a story about compromised data that was sold through Facebook to some company in England that sounds like Encyclopedia Britannica, isn't it time to throw your phone away? Or at least, get off of it and start having face-to-face conversations?