disconnect (verb):
1: to terminate a connection
2: to become detached or withdrawn
It's a common enough word, but not practiced enough in every day life - so it seems to me. I thought about this word today while at the gym and looking at a girl go machine to machine carrying her iPhone with her. Most people use their iPhone at the gym as their iPod. But this girl was connected. She'd do a rep then stop and browse the web or check status updates on Facebook. I was obsessed with watching her because she was so oblivious to the fact that there were so many of us in the line to use her machine next. She didn't notice. Or she didn't care. She stopped down for a good two minutes to browse the web, then did another rep, then stopped down again for two minutes, then another rep etc...
This got me thinking to people's lack of being able to disconnect. For once, can you leave the phone in your purse (or in the gym locker)? Can you go one day without checking email? Or one day without texting? Can you leave the phone off the table during dinner? Can you leave it home for one full day without feeling like you're "naked?" It's really shocking to me how so many people can't go a few minutes without touching their phone. Is it a security blanket for them? A need to feel not lonely?
I've been very conscious of my phone habits for the past three months or so. I pay attention to when I pull it out and make note of why I'm pulling it out. Am I going to check my email? Send a text? Play Hanging with Friends? Check the weather? Or am I just pulling it out from habit? Sadly I have a bad habit of hitting the snooze on my phone alarm each morning, then at the second snooze I unlock the phone and check the weather. At the third snooze I check my horoscope. At the fourth snooze I check the weather. And sometimes when I'm really lazy, on the fifth snooze, I check the news. It's really ridiculous. I'm conscious of it though and I'm making an effort to change that. The effort being to disconnect and connect only when I really need to - - to not run to the phone anytime I hear a noise coming out of it.
I wonder what life would be like if we didn't have these fun phones? Would people have to talk more? Would more letters be written? Would relationships be stronger because there's not the Facebook jealousy factor to contend with? Unfortunately, it seems we're so deep in the trenches of being connected to the immediacy of things that I don't think we'll ever be able to truly disconnect.
