I was sitting in a crowded bus with fifty other classmates, watching a movie on my phone as we made our way to Wilmington, North Carolina for a marine ecology field trip. I have always had a bad habit of being constantly on my phone but it wasn’t until this one bus ride until I unexpectedly became fully aware of it. Upon looking up from my cell phone, I fell witness to the most beautifully painted sunrise, screaming with vibrant shades of pink and orange. Inspecting the bus, I noticed every single person was on their phones, not looking outside, and completely unaware of the environment surrounding them. This began to get me thinking about just how much we are missing out on.

The average person will spend four years of his or her life on their phone, meaning a vast majority of our waking moments will be spent tethered to our phone screens. As a society, we sit back and fall victim to not taking advantage of numerous opportunities that could come our way. Whether this is because we are distracted by what we choose to prioritize, or because we spend too much time on the technology right at our fingertips. Our phones are here to make it easier to connect and socialize with people who aren’t present with us at the moment. However, we no longer use our cell phones the way they were intended to be used, instead they are now small computers; allowing you to watch videos, update social media, and surf the Internet. Although some may find this to be convenient, it is actually taking away from the people that lie right in front of us and have slowly evolved to be an excuse not to be social. This technology makes it excusable not to say hi, hindering potential conversations and the chance to make a connection with a person you don’t know. Although I am too guilty of this, I cannot help but cringe when I see a teenager who cannot be bothered from their cell phone to have an actual conversation with their own family members at a restaurant. With attention spans lower than ever, a decrease in productivity, and a strong correlation between heavy phone use and lower intelligence, our phones are quite literally outsmarting us. How will the future generation be able to form a sentence into words without it being proofread through auto correct? We truly are beginning to live in a world of smartphones and dumb people. We have been exposed to a new way of thinking where we are defined by our social status; the number of likes you obtain and the followers you possess make up the way we are portrayed. We no longer judge a person by their character, but by their profile on social media. This “social” media phenomenon leads us to compare the quality of our own lives to others, thinking that we don’t meet the so-called standards of a great life. I have come to realize that life is so much more than looking at what others are doing or at a glowing screen, and our generation must learn to do the same.

We need to make a change in the world we are living in and look up from the glass screen that beholds a perceptual reality that takes away the moment we’re living in. From a beautiful sunrise to a nice family dinner, we miss out on life’s simple joys when our attention is turned south to a glowing phone screen. I want society to look up from our phones and live in today to rediscover what life is really about. We need to turn off the notifications, silence our phones, and focus on what is ahead so we don’t allow these devices to swallow the precious time that we do have. The solution is to unplug- unplug our phones, our laptops, our need to be heard and defined, and look up at our surroundings, leaving distractions behind.