From time to time, I like to browse my phone and listen to some spoken word poetry. As I shuffled through, one piece struck a chord and left a sizeable impression on me. Whether or not you’ve had the chance to listen to this viral spoken word, British writer/poet Gary Turk delivers a significant message in his piece, Look Up.
In his poem, Turk starts with the lines:
” I have 422 friends (…yet I’m lonely)
I speak to all of them everyday (yet none of them really know me!)
The problem I have sits in the space in-between
Looking in the eyes or at a name on the screen. “
It’s tough to imagine a world void of wifi, instagram, facebook, iPhones and iPads. Technology – whether we accept or not – is in the face of everything we do. It is in our very routines. We depend on it for work, for school/knowledge, for running errands, for entertainment, and for communicating. It gives us freedom to create and explore our identity. There’s certainly no harm in that is there? Essentially, technology is supposed to make our lives easier and smoother to run – and it does, it does it very well.
But in what I’ve seen and experienced, there is often a certain balance between using technology in a reasonable manner and borderline abusing it’s purposes. How many times have you noticed a pair on a lunch date, only to see their phones 3-inches away from their faces? Together; yet nobody is talking. When you go out to see a live concert, how many flashing phone screens do you see in the air? I don’t mean to be prude on the matter but – in moments like these, I think it’s important to put away our phones for a minute or two. Snap one picture if you have to, but then leave your phone and simply appreciate your surroundings. It’s liberating to have the power to witness something beautiful, something incredible with your eyes, and be able to resist the temptation of saving the moment digitally.
As Turk goes on, he also suggests that people are finding it difficult to interact with others and are choosing the comfort of our phones to hide from making new connections. Is this true? Do our phones close us off to other people that much? You could argue that the internet is supposed to connect us with each other – it breaks boundaries and lets us meet with people around the world, right? However I cannot deny never doing this at times; more than once I’ve found myself looking down, just to avoid potentially awkward interactions.
Ironically, I rant on this as I type away at my own laptop, keeping away to myself and avoiding other people. I found this poem on my phone as I take in free wi-fi at a Starbucks. In a way we are all a type of hypocrite, and I know it’s inevitable to be a part of this technologically-dependant culture. Let’s be honest, having a phone is amazing. Having snap-chat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr (all at once!) is wonderful and great. My point to all of this is there is a happy medium in the ways we choose to utilize technology, and that there’s really a time and place for everything.
In the words of Gary Turk, I will leave you with one last thought:
“Look up from your phone, shut down the display.
Take in your surroundings, make the most of today.
Just one real connection is all it can take to show you the difference that being there can make.”