“This is group therapy,” my history professor declares, holding up his phone so the whole lecture hall can see its blank, lifeless screen. He insists upon 50 minutes of this cell phone detox twice a week during his lectures. While this is a more than reasonable request during class time, as it is necessary to focus on the material being presented, I always wonder about the implications of this “therapy” outside of Gambrell 153.
It was immediately outside Gambrell 153, waiting for this history lecture to begin, that I dropped my phone on those weird, shiny, concave bricks. My case dismantled and my phone lay face down on the floor. This may all sound very dramatic, but frankly, it was. This is what concerns me.
My peers all perked up at the clatter when phone met floor. As I reached for it I saw concerned glances shoot my way. Everyone in that hall knew that all too familiar terror: did I crack it?
I grasped my phone, turned it to face me and sighed in relief at the sight of the mirror-like, uncracked surface staring back at me. A kind bystander helped me gather my case and another sympathetic classmate chirped, “Is it okay? That’s the scariest thing.” I smiled and thanked them for their help and concern, reassuring them that it was fine.
I felt a bubble of affection for community in my chest and floated on it to my seat and as I sat back and allowed myself some idle thought before lecture began I realized: that was the stupidest thing I’ve been upset about in a long time, and as a Viewpoints writer, I am very easily upset.
I sit in my seat, blissful bubble broken, wondering when I became so attached to an item. This brick in my pocket did not come over on the boat with my Irish ancestors. It didn’t come from a lover as a token as he went off to war. It came from Walmart. There are hundreds of thousands exactly like it. Yet when I dropped it, it was like dropping a baby.
We have built a dependence, and, to a certain extent, an infrastructure around these fragile pieces of glass and metal, filled with ones and zeros. We check them like a reflex, our dopamine receptors overjoyed at the blinking notification light or the sound of the text tone. Our eyes grow wide and our voices trail off from what we were saying, focusing only on what this little fragile box demands of us.
I think my history professor has a point: a little group therapy could probably do us all some good.