Problem: these days, I can’t put down my phone. I’ve deleted YouTube, and I’ve banned myself from Facebook. Yet still, I cannot get myself to stop texting. My clinginess to texting is a phase that fades in and out for me, but one that is at least somewhat everpresent. After I’ve been strongly advised by my parents multiple times to leave my phone out of my room recently, it’s become a presence in my life that I can’t ignore.
When you’re texting the right person, it’s a drug. The messages keep coming in, and with every 160 characters or so our world shifts a trifle and we feel a little social ping go off in our brains. Texting is quick and easy satisfaction, and it keeps us connected with friends and loved ones who are a little farther than a hop, skip, and a jump. Speedy flashes of dopamine keep us at the keyboard, as we text sometimes for hours on end into the night. It eats away time, it’s a pain, and it’s distracting, but it’s absolutely addictive. This isn’t new news. Yet we young people send or receive an average of over 100 texts per day, which is a lot. When we invest that much time into sending tiny messages on our phones, it can’t not affect our every day. Recently, I’ve noticed that I’ve been more withdrawn, more antsy, and less motivated. When my brain isn’t buzzing on this tiny form of communication, it feels uncomfortably quiet by comparison. Thus, I’ve effectively been clinging to my phone at all hours of the day, praying for any interesting message to arrive.
I don’t aim to preach that technology is the root of all evil in our time. For many of us, we give nostalgia too much credit when we look back on the “good old days” where technology was scarce and we were forced to talk face to face. There is absolutely merit in texting, as both a means of transmitting requests and information, as well as a means of having conversations. Yet as senior year is winding down and I am contemplating the end of school as a real and very present fact, I can’t stop wanting to absorb every second with my friends as much as I possibly can. Maybe it’s about time that I realize that texting isn’t the way that memories are made and the way that connections thrive. There will always be certain texts that I have sent and received that I will never forget. Yet when I look back on my past four years of school, I’ll remember a four-person frozen yogurt excursion instead of a two-year-long group chat. I’ll remember grocery shopping and cooking crepes over any string of flirty text messages. I’ll remember daily carpooling to school with my best friend far more than the nonsense we send each other on our phones. For so many of us, as the school year winds down and summer beckons, we are scrambling to hold onto the memories that we can and to make the memories that we haven’t yet found.
So, looking forward? I can put down my phone; 160 characters can wait. I have a senior year to finish and a summer approaching, and I aim to meet it all head-on, IRL.
