Writing at Very Smart Brothas, S. Nicole Brown reflects on the ways in which the proliferation of texting and tweeting has wrecked our ability to make eye contact and negotiate other basic social skills.
I noticed it one day while walking from class.
Making my way across the common area of campus on a beautiful sunny day, the sounds of the latest Top Forty blaring from a speaker behind a DJ booth asking people to sign up to volunteer for the next “save the world” project, I looked up from my phone, and looked around.
What I saw, kind of jolted me. Every single person that passed in this very busy area of campus, was looking down at their phone. I realized I had walked halfway across campus without one lifting my head up away from my phone, and noticed everyone doing the same. Watching people swarm around me in a rush to get home or to another class, I realized we had all so mastered the art of texting/tweeting/status-liking while doing other things, that we were on a sort of real time auto-pilot while our virtual lives kept our attention.
So of course, I took to twitter to state publicly my observation, and continued to walk with my head down, and on my phone.
From that day on I noticed more and more the absence of eye contact or basic human interaction when walking into stores, restaurants, on campus, at home.
Read S. Nicole Brown's entire piece at Very Smart Brothas.
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