I spent the week in a hotel just blocks away from the White House. I grew up in Northern Virginia and this was one of my first times back that wasn’t all work and no play. Instead of solely making visits to planes and conference rooms like usual, I actually had a chance to go and visit museums, too. I love history so this was a (nerdy) treat.
The morning of our departure, I went down to the front desk to make sure everything was charged to the right card. The 20-something person at the front desk joked that one day they likely wouldn’t be there. They would be replaced by a kiosk of some sort. “I sure hope not,” I said with a smile. As much as I’m looking forward to the future and automation, I don’t want to stand in a long line of people who can’t quite figure out what buttons to push and have a laundry list of questions. That system works in Las Vegas where 2/3 of the people are on their way to tech conferences. I can’t imagine how it might work out in rural America where retirees doing cross-country road trips are staying for their first trip to a Hilton.
“The issue,” I said, “is that the machine won’t just tell people what’s really happening. While a kiosk might come back with a code or error message, a person can give you context. They can explain that the card coding machines are down right now or that your room isn’t ready yet.”
What they said next stunned me far more than the suggestion that the job would be automated soon. They shared that their phone hasn’t worked for two days. “I feel free,” they said with a smile. “I’m not using my time to compare myself to others or beat myself up. I guess it’s all good until my family tries to get ahold of me.”
There’s a dotted line of division between kids that grew up in libraries and kids that grew up with iPads. My generation sits along this fine line and I often fall into the beliefs of the older group. I find myself saying things like “I didn’t do that” and “when I was younger” – all surefire ways to age myself prematurely. I have caught myself judging the way younger people use their phones all the time. I didn’t realize until now that they’re even more aware of the dangers of staring at your phone all the time.
A study in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that Gen Z is particularly susceptible to negative impacts from social media use, including heightened social comparison and decreased self-esteem. The study showed that frequent exposure to idealized images on social media platforms leads to increased feelings of inadequacy and reduced life satisfaction (Fardouly et al., 2015). While those of us that didn’t grow up with cellphones wonder out loud why we feel so frustrated with the world, these kids know that their phone is making things worse. As much as it’s aspirational, it’s not inspirational. Instead, our minds default into this: Why am I not there? Why not me? It’s creating discontent with a slideshow of people, places, and things we might want.
In the moments of quiet when my mind could wander, I interrupt it with stimuli from my phone like Instagram and checking late night email. I catch myself doing it all the time. I find myself feeling sad for no reason, never considering that it could be all the frustrating realities of the world I’m consuming in excess. Then, silly enough, wondering why I might be feeling that way.
No matter where you fall on the generational divide, I think we can all benefit from taking time to put our phones down. To seek out quiet – if only in our minds – before we find ourselves talking to robots.