Throughout my childhood, before I was cursed with open availability, I dreamed of owning my own landline. I pictured the green phone hanging on my wall, accompanied by the curly cord that I could twirl around my pointer finger as I spoke in whispers to my friends deep into the late hours of the night. I wanted to memorize each important number and listen to the sound of the buttons clicking as I pressed them. I thought about listening to voicemails, debating whether or not I wanted to call someone back. I knew they wouldn’t be personally offended if I chose the latter.
Anyone can imagine how disappointed I was when I found out that this kind of communication hardly exists in our world anymore.
Now, in my teenage years, I have grown excessively close to my cell phone. It is always with me, either in my back pocket or in perfect sight somewhere; when I realize it may be lost, an absurd amount of anxiety begins to build up and sit like a rock in my stomach, testing my patience. The bond my cell phone and I have is not one that I would like to have; unfortunately, our society nowadays feels like it is fully dependent on cell phones.
Sometimes I wish I could detach myself from the bond my phone and I have been forced to create. I want to go out and run some errands by myself. This doesn’t necessarily sound like a crazy concept until I am walking around the grocery store with the people on my phone being the focal point of my trip, not the groceries surrounding me. I want to decide when I want to interact with people; receiving a text message often feels like a constant invasion of my seclusion.
I think our world would be a better place if we were not all available 24/7.
I would consider myself to be an extremely extroverted person. I cherish real, human interaction to the fullest extent, and I strive to give the best version of myself to those around me. The reason that human interaction is so important to me is that communication is truly one of the greatest gifts we have been given as a society. However, I believe that it shouldn’t be used all the time.
It is okay to be alone. Yes, if I don’t want to receive any notifications for a period of time, I can turn on the ‘Do Not Disturb’ feature, but I have had people override it, somehow. Has solitude become that taboo?
When I leave my cell phone at home to go out on a walk, I feel awkwardly accomplished. Each step I take is filled with wonder; I wonder how many notifications I am going to come home to and open up. I wonder if my sister is going to call me, asking for my location, only to be met with the sound of soft ringing from up the stairwell.
I wish that unavailability were acceptable. I hate the feeling of being forced into dull, naive conversations, often occurring over text messages. Don’t get me wrong, I think texting is an amazing technological advancement of the 21st century—I just think it has wrecked human conversation more than we realize. Oftentimes, I will misinterpret the tone behind a person’s text message—something that can be easily avoided by calling that person.
The beauty of the phone call is the autonomy you are given: will you answer, or will you let it ring out to voicemail? The curse of the text message is constant open availability: a person is able to reach you at all times throughout the day, waiting for a response. I am not trying to paint myself as some anti-texting saint; texting can be useful in many situations, such as sending an address, picture, or quick thought to someone. However, when texting becomes the main form of communication between humans, our conversations become dull and impersonal. The voice is a tool, and humans need to revert to when the majority of our interactions used it.
