UNITED STATES—I wish I could rewind back to the days where cellphones didn’t exist. It seems they consume so much of our time and make us less social as human beings that what we have ever seen before. I remembered when you had the rotary telephone that used to take hours (lol) to make a phone call or a landline where you didn’t have to worry about a call being dropped because of a bad signal. Those days have since left us.
We are in a new era, one where everyone is on the cellphone relentlessly. I’m included in that group, but I’ve started to open my eyes just a little bit to the stress that comes with these great, but stressful devices. We fill the need to always been checking or looking at our phone, which begs the question why? Why are we so enamored by the cellphone?
If anything it has gotten to a point where we have become so much less social. Go to any public place in the next 24 hours and observe, and when I say OBSERVE I mean just that. PUT THE DAMN PHONE AWAY and watch. People are going to be glued to their phones and barely interacting with the people around them, and that is an issue. Our social skills are constantly going down the drain because we are not using them. We are not using our ability to speak and chat with people and as a result we are dumbfounded and lessened with communication and interaction skills.
As a result, I am trying to stay off the phone more and interact more. Actually have a conversation with people and get to know them. At the same time, putting the phone away is a good thing. Why? It can be a distraction. You don’t have to be on it nonstop. You don’t have to be surfing the internet, you do not have to be checking emails, you don’t have to be posting on social media, you don’t have to be responding to messages. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE GLUED TO YOUR PHONE.
For years I used to have this mentality that I HAD to respond to a text message as soon as I received it. Why? I can’t explain it? It used to mess with my head and mentally torture me if I didn’t. Not in 2026. I’ll get to it, when I get to it, that notion of doing it right away, I have to let it go because it is not helping me in the process. I know this might be hard to do it, but if you can take 24 hours and just disconnect from the phone. Ask yourself how you feel, you’re going to probably have a sense of relief, a rejuvenation that you didn’t realize was possible.
Then it hits you, your world doesn’t have to revolve around your phone. Don’t allow your phone to control you, find a way to have more control over your phone. Trust me your life will be so much better once you do.
Written By Zoe Mitchell
