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This past weekend the hubs took me to see comedian Wanda Sykes at Austin’s lovely ACL Moody Theater.
When we arrived, the line to get in stretched clear around the downtown city block. We’ve seen huge names there, from Elton John to Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett, but even though it’s a relatively intimate amphitheater, we had never seen crowd congestion like this.
We realized why when we got finally to the front of the line. Everyone had to stop and put their phone and smartwatch into a small bag, which the staff then locked and gave back.
We’d read in advance that they would be doing this at the venue, and in fact I had decided not to take my phone at all, since I didn’t see the point if there was no way to access it. I asked about the policy as a staff member locked my husband’s phone and watch into a bag, and the woman said some performers requested it to prevent anyone from recording their act, which makes sense, especially for a stand-up.
We went inside and took our seats, and I immediately noticed something. Preshow conversations were buzzing throughout the theater. Knots of people stood talking all over the space. I watched a man recognize someone he knew in another part of the theater and walk over to chat with him and his date. The couple a few rows in front of us nuzzled one another, one of them resting his head on his date’s shoulder while the other man kissed the top of his head and they murmured to each other. People chatted in line at the bars, so much so that an organizer had to come and shoo away one group that got so intent on their conversation they forgot to clear the area after they got their drinks.
It’s such a cliché that we’re always buried in our phones and don’t engage with the world around us, but seeing it all at once like that, in a room full of thousands of people, not one of whom was lost in their tech, filled me with a powerful mix of emotions.
Interacting IRL
First was absolute delight. I didn’t even sit down, just stood with probably a ridiculous grin on my face, enchanted by watching people simply engage around me. When my husband joined me at our seats I was still standing there, taking it all in, relishing what felt like a throwback to a time I’m old enough to remember when this was everyday life.
And then came a pang of sorrow for what’s been lost in the world. When we aren’t engaging with people, we start to distance ourselves. The human beings right there in front of us begin to not seem as real or compelling as the virtual engagements we’re having on our devices, or whatever mindless scrolling we may be doing.
“If this were life,” I said to my husband, “we’d fix polarization and divisiveness overnight.” It’s just almost impossible to demonize and dismiss other people when they are flesh-and-blood humans with whom you’re engaging face-to-face. That’s when we see how complex people are, more than just a single belief or ideology they may hold, but rich, complicated, often contradictory souls with whom we may find we have a great deal in common, with whom we may enjoy interesting conversation, whom we may simply exchange smiles with, as I noticed many people doing.
At the bathroom more people were chatting as we waited in line. On the way back to my seat I recognized one half of a couple whose style I’d admired on our way into the theater, the man standing in line at one of the bars.
“Excuse me,” I said, touching his arm. I asked if his date was the woman whose outfit I described to him. He looked puzzled.
“Yes,” he said.
“I told my husband when we saw the two of you walking in together that you both look spectacular,” I said.
A great smile bloomed across his face. “Thank you,” he said warmly. “I’ll tell her. It’s nice to meet you.”
When the show started, we and everyone around us just watched it, firsthand, rather than through our screens to record it to look at later or broadcast to others rather than simply being present with it. We were having our own experience, individually and collectively, not gathering content for social media or bragging rights.
None of this will be a revelation to any of you. Talking about how technology has subsumed our attention and interaction is beyond old news, all the way firmly into cliché territory.
But it’s one thing to say that and another to see it in action: how our social interaction is immediately transformed the moment our devices are taken away. How people’s demeanors visibly lighten whenever that force field of leave me alone —which automatically erects around us whenever our heads are tipped down to our screens—lowers.
I remember many years ago, when the iPhone first screamed onto the scene, my early-adopter husband got one when I and most people were still using our little brick phones and flip phones that, you know…made phone calls. I joked how wonderful it was that now when we went shopping together, instead of following me around the store and making me feel rushed, he would contentedly sit outside on a bench and entertain himself on his phone until I finished.
But thinking about that the other night, I realized how much I’ve lost. Yes, my husband is so goal-oriented that shopping became not leisurely browsing, but a mission to locate our objective in the least amount of time.
But you know what? We were doing that together, with our full attention on the moment and on each other. We were bantering and teasing, good-naturedly complaining—him about how long I was taking, me about his results-oriented fixation on finding what I came for. When I tried on clothes I would come out and show him and he would weigh in.
I realized that in my own goal orientation of wanting the freedom to stroll through a store unrushed, I had overlooked the best part of the whole excursion: doing it together.
How Attention Impacts Your Writing
Don’t worry, of course I’m going to tie this into our writing. One of the things that struck me so powerfully as I relished this glimpse of an unplugged world was simply how present everyone was. Even those who were not engaged in conversation were looking around, taking in the space and the other people, or maybe just thinking their own thoughts.
That’s what I was doing too, in fact. Just being present.
In writing terms, I was collecting resources. People-watching is some of the most instructive work we can do for creating richly and fully developed characters on the page. Seeing how people interact, their demeanor and affect and mannerisms, all give us tools for bringing characters to life on the page and letting readers see them.
In a recent class I taught at a conference about using nonverbals in scenes, I encouraged the authors in attendance to do more of this kind of people-watching. See how someone’s gestures and body language and mannerisms suggest to you what they’re feeling. Conjecture about them or their lives or their backstory from their interactions, what they’re wearing, how they hold themselves, how they engage with other people (or don’t), and see if you can guess at the relationships or what people are talking about just from those visual cues.
Play the fun writerly game of what-if: What if these two in animated conversation are estranged siblings who haven’t seen each other in a decade? What if they are ex-lovers, each still carrying a torch for the other, or one doesn’t know that the other bore his child after they broke up, or these two are meeting for the first time and experiencing “the thunderbolt,” that potent jolt of instant connection, and you’re witnessing the genesis of a powerful love story. Let your imagination frolic in the playground of the rich world you see around you.
Letting our thoughts stray is fertile ground for creativity. In fact, it resulted in this post. But I also couldn’t start making notes for it as I sat in the amphitheater, since I had nothing to take them on, no way to record my thoughts. Instead I just stayed in the moment, reflecting on what I was seeing and experiencing. It percolated in my mind so that when I finally sat down to write about it I’d had time to let it ripen and deepen and develop in my head.
The Power of Presence
When I rejoined my husband in our seats before the show we chatted about everything and anything: the half of the couple I’d seen and spoken to (a habit he knows I have and seems to find endearing, despite teasing me about my overfriendliness), about Wanda Sykes, about the interactions we were seeing around us. When the pre-show music turned funky we swayed in tandem in our seats, shoulders pressed together, laughing at what goofballs we were.
We had to stand in line again on the way out so the staff could unlock each person’s bag and release their devices, and I have to admit to more than a twinge of sorrow and regret as they did.
I’m a realist, and I’m practical. I know that technology is no small part of the reason our civilization has made the advances it has, that quality of life—yes, even amid the current world chaos—is overall higher than it has been at any time in history.
I know that my successful business would not have been possible in the same way or at the same level without technology, and that even the demon AI, for all that I recently learned I like so many others have been pirated by it, has already led to even more positive advances, and could lead to solving many intractable global problems that have vexed the world throughout history.
I know all this. And yet…
I must have been more reluctant than I realized to let go of the feelings I had with everyone phone-free that evening, because the next day I barely touched mine. I went to play pickleball early in the morning with friends at a lovely outdoor court overlooking Austin’s hill country, and picked my phone up only to turn off an alarm I’d forgotten I’d set.
When I got home my husband and I did yard work together, my phone lying forgotten and unmissed inside for hours. When he went inside I started cleaning the front porch furniture (we just had it tiled and I could not bear to put the dirty furnishings onto its pristine surface)—but rather than fetching my phone and listening to podcasts, as I usually would, I just kept working, listening to the sounds of nature and the neighborhood, responding to neighbor greetings as they wandered by, focusing on my tasks, and letting my mind free-roam.
Late that night, as we got ready for bed, I noticed bright flashes of light outside. I went out onto the front porch and sat in a pine rocking chair my husband’s beloved stepfather had hand-made decades earlier—something I’d somehow never done before—watching the impressive lightning storm for a few minutes before popping my head back inside to call my husband out too.
He joined me on our lovely freshly tiled and scrubbed front porch, sitting beside me as we simply watched nature’s flash and ferocity lighting up the sky, waves of thunder rolling in the distance until finally the storm broke with a vengeance.
We weren’t really doing anything at all, but it felt like everything.
Over to you, authors: How often do you put your phone down and simply pay attention? Do you let your mind wander, or reach for distraction the moment you have a beat of downtime? How much time do you spend people watching—filling the well of characterization with observation? Do you ever allow yourself to just be idle and process, cogitate, think?
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20 Comments. Leave new
Thanks for your insights, Tiffany! It’s a fresh take on just how meaningful our lives can be when tech is put in check in our day to day.
I, too, have noticed an improved quality of life when I’m not tethered to my phone. I notice things more, and the noticing itself has better, deeper quality, which help us connect to more than just our writing.
But being “in the moment”— a term often ascribed to actors and acting — isn’t just for actors. There are a lot more parallels to taking something from our brains to the page and from the page to the stage than we might realize—which your fine article illustrates.
And there’s nothing that helps us write solid, three-dimensional dialogue like listening to it out in public.
Thanks again!
Oh, BIG yes on observing dialogue, Nathan. I have a friend who calls this “conversational shoplifting,” which cracks me up–but it’s so true.
The less I’m tethered to my phone, the happier and more focused and settled I find I feel, as you suggest. I’ve taken to leaving it in the other room most of the day when I’m working, and I have all notifications turned off, the phone on silent except for calls (in case of emergencies). I read how we’re conditioned to react like Pavlovian dogs to all the sounds and vibrations of our phones, and I don’t like the idea of being so in thrall to it, so viscerally reactive. That was why I initially turned off the notifications, and OH, the peace.
And yes, how can that focused presence not improve our creativity and our writing? How can paying attention more not help give us fodder and fill the well? Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
What a wonderful experience at the theater. I often am phone free—except in the car where I panic without GPS rerouting me past our horrid NOVA traffic. I often have to ask my husband to put down the phone and just be with me for one hour. It has made a difference when he does. But a whole theater full? Heaven! Thank you for sharing.
Susan, after I watched the Limitless documentary (with Chris Hemsworth, not the Bradley Cooper move of the same name), with the episode about mental acuity that said one of the single best things you can do to exercise it is NOT use GPS, I started doing that. I LOVED how quickly I paid attention to street names, mileage, landmarks, road details that all made me feel more present and oriented. I loved mapping the destination ahead of time and planning my best route. I felt my brain crackling to awareness.
BUT…live traffic reports! That’s one of the single greatest conveniences I can imagine. I started consulting GPS for that…then slowly defaulted right back to replying on it. You remind me I’d like to lay off it a little more again to have more of the situational awareness. (But I do love the “think time” in a car when I’m on GPS autopilot.)
I started having both sides of the conversation when my hubs was first ensnared by his smartphone, and I think I annoyed him into putting it down. 😀 We try to be pretty good about being present together, but yes–that whole theater of thousands of people doing it was really something special. I hated for it to end.
That would be wonderful except they are building up our area, rerouting roads and changing street names constantly and rerouting around congestion and closed lanes. Makes for very confusing navigation. Hubby retires in June and we will move to blessedly peaceful mountains. Yay
That sounds delightful, Susan–hope the move goes smoothly!
I try to go camping twice a year, and I tend to go where there is no service. That’s intentional, for the many reason you write about in this post. I listen, I see, I feel, I smell, all in analogue. The ripple effect when I return home is like yours; I don’t turn on my computer for a day or so, and only stay on long enough to address pressing emails. My phone stays on vibrate, and I’ve even forgotten it when I leave the house… Starting to think twice a year isn’t enough!
Oh, Linda, that sounds so peaceful and lovely. I grew up camping with my family, then spent many years doing it at music festivals. Camping is magic (though my princess hubs thinks roughing it means no room service). Now I try to just keep my phone off and tucked away on any vacation, which is also lovely.
I’m very mindful of consciously trying in a lot of situations to ignore it–out with friends or my hubs, with my family, doing other things, and definitely working (it lives in another room, all sounds turned off except the ringer, in case of emergency calls). Every now and again I’ll leave it behind intentionally when I leave the house, though I admit it now makes me nervous a little bit (as if I didn’t grow up free-roaming with no phone).
It’s crazy how much this technology has altered us so foundationally, isn’t it? Enjoy your next peaceful camping trip–I’ll be here coveting that experience. 🙂
An insightful post, Tiffany, and one that resonates with me. I’m someone who resisted smart phones for three years. I could see the benefits immediately, but also the dangers.
I used to keep my phone on my desk until the infamous moment in 2020 that’s forever etched on my brain. My productivity was lagging and I was feeling frustrated. Frustration led to wanting to escape that frustration instead of dealing with it. So, I picked up my phone and checked for notifications.
Nothing.
I set the phone down and returned my fingers to the keyboard.
Seconds later, I realized I was holding my phone again. For the first time, I wondered how often I did that without realizing it? It’d become so automatic that I didn’t give it a thought, which is the point. That moment of realization was a gift.
I jumped up, set the phone across the room in silent mode, and returned to my desk.
My production soared, and has remained high ever since.
Here it is, a decade later, and I can still see the benefits, but now I’ve experienced the dangers. I can write historical fiction and know what life was like before our phones because I lived it for over four decades.
Christine, like you I was a really late adopter (of everything, but especially cellphones). Eventually it becomes a major disadvantage not to have one, though–and I see its usefulness even while I do mourn what’s been lost.
That experience you describe about compulsively checking the phone–I catch myself doing that all the time too! But as you say, only when it’s beside me. I saw a study that said that even if your phone is turned off, just having it in the room, within sight, diffuses your focus. That’s the main reason I keep mine elsewhere while I’m working–and if it’s not right there, I never think of it. It’s only when it’s ready to hand that I do that obsessive checking thing–out of habit, boredom. As you said, it really heightens my focus and productivity.
I try to let myself be bored now–no podcasts while I’m walking the dogs or social media scrolling in lines. Often my mind starts wandering onto some pretty interesting paths when I can let myself do that, and I observe more, and am generally just more present.
If people haven’t yet seen it, that 2020 documentary The Social Dilemma will go a long way toward helping curtail your device use…just as Buy Now goes a long way toward curtailing mindless shopping/buying.
Thank you for your insights regarding this phenomenon. Although I bring my phone when my wife and run errands, go shopping, go out to eat, or go to church, I have begun leaving my phone in the car, checking it only after we have completed our business (I am a parental caregiver and so need at least that ability for connection in case there is an emergency).
When I am finished working for the day, after closing my office for the night, I place my phone on the lamp table beside the bed and leave it there for the evening, using it only as an alarm if I need to wake up at a certain time the next day.
It is such a freeing experience.
I am saddened that so many businesses now “force” you to use your technology to not only place food orders or make other purchases but to also “get” stuff for free when you shop with them. “Download our app” is the new catch phrase. How many apps does a person need?
To be honest, I sometimes long for the days when we were tethered to a cord and there were no answering machines or computers, and perhaps not even a TV, but just a small transistor radio. – Yes, I am that old. LOL
Thank you again for your insights and sage advice. It is always appreciated.
Ooh, Stephen, challenge accepted! I love the idea of leaving our phones behind in little time chunks like that. I get that as a caregiver you can’t do it much more than that–my failsafe is that my hubs wears a smartwatch and pretty much always has his phone, so people know if they need me urgently they can call him (we’re often together, and if not he always knows where I am), which allows me that luxury. Thanks to your reminder I’m going to try to start doing more of it. (Although ask me about the time I met some old friends for dinner while out of town, which stretched many hours, with my phone tucked into my purse on silent, and my hubs panicked when he couldn’t reach me with multiple texts and calls and pretty much called out the cavalry to get proof of life.)
Listen, I’m with you on longing for less connectivity. My husband jokes that I’d be Amish if I could (when we met, in the late 2000s, I had no cable TV and a dial-up modem). I fantasize about that a lot–and that glimpse of it at the theater was so heady. I know that it has a lot of advantages…I know it can open up our worlds…and yet yes, I think we lost something simple and good when smartphones became ubiquitous.
I love the images of people suddenly emerging from their phones and interacting with each other. The best writing residency I ever attended was at Hawthornden Castle in Scotland. There was no internet and not because it was unavailable, but because the organizers blocked it intentionally. There were six of us and most of us stopped working by late afternoon. We’d gather outside for a walk, come back and have a leisurely dinner together, and then sit for a few hours in a living room and talk about writing, our lives, our everything. I’ve never written as much in one month as I did at Hawthornden, before or since.
Oh, Jacqueline, it was so lovely–you can imagine, it sounds like, having had such a delightful experience at your writers’ retreat (in SCOTLAND! How jelly I am). You make me want to have a phone/internet-free vacation myself–it sounds idyllic to sit and think and write and talk and discuss writing.
Great stuff, Tiffany.
I got my first cell phone in 1995 so when I was stuck in traffic, I could call the client or prospect I was supposed to meet with to ask them not to give up on me. The only things you could do on it were make and receive calls. And I could do both.
In our current age, at my current age, I’m cyber-challenged; I can do some of the things my phone can do, even text when it’s absolutely necessary, but I’m very limited. By my eyesight, my digital facility, and frankly, by my motivation. I have no business in this century (although it does have some advantages.) I’m not too decrepit yet, so I still carry my phone (not the one I bought in ’95) because, at my age, events I could once have managed without strain can now become unmanageable.
I think an important fourth element was omitted from the list of our needs for food, clothing, and shelter because as soon as those needs are met, us humans seem to need stimulation, which we often seek as entertainment. (That’s good for us writers.) When we don’t have it electronically, we seek it from other humans. If any are present. Once we are accomplished drivers, the car radio or something similar provides the portion of our consciousness not needed for driving with stimulation in the form of information or art. Or something.
I’m not sure how our preoccupation with the cyber world contributes to the awful polarization and demonization that’s so prevalent currently. I suspect that has its roots in our entitlement.
But, your point about observation of our fellow humans and creating characters is dead on. Those of my characters who are not as close as I can get to people I’ve known (thank heaven copyright does not apply) have at least a spark in them of someone I’ve known or observed.
As always, thank you for provoking thought.
Wow, you were an early adopter, Bob. I dragged my feet getting a pager (!!), and then getting a phone, and then with a smartphone. I’m the opposite of an early adopter.
I do think we gravitate to stimulation, but I wonder if that’s a substitute or panacea. Coincidentally, I read a great post today by Oliver Burkeman (he wrote the wonderful Four Thousand Weeks) that spoke about this, about stepping away from those distractions as a way of seeing how we use them to avoid uncomfortable feelings or thoughts. Here’s his quote:
A digital detox will probably make you feel sad or anxious (but do it anyway): If you’re anything like me, you may have felt the urge in recent months to get more serious about relegating digital technology back to its proper role as a tool – something you pick up and use when it serves your purposes, then put back on the shelf, instead of marinating all day in the disordered world of the terminally online. Yet it’s striking how often this topic gets written about as if the moment you take social media off your phone, or begin a ritual of leaving your phone in the hallway at home, or switch to a dumbphone, you can expect to feel immediate peace and happiness. This is unlikely! As with other compulsive behaviours, we use aimless scrolling to distract from, or to paper over, emotions we don’t enjoy experiencing, especially sadness or anxiety. So it’s a good bet that when you step away from your devices, you’ll be spending more time, at least in the near term, with the emotions they were helping you avoid. Fortunately, in most cases, just knowing to expect this will enable you to resist the temptation to scurry back to the screens. (And incidentally, if you doubt that you use technology in this emotionally avoidant way, simply take some context where you’d usually always listen to a podcast or music – such as driving, or commuting by subway, or going for a run – and try how it feels not to do that. Weirdly harder than you expected, right?)
I think a lot of the polarization and “othering” comes from how technology distances and dehumanizes other people–it’s why I think a digital detox would help address it. It’s very hard to hate a flesh-and-blood human you’re engaging with face-to-face–much harder than making cutting remarks to some faceless entity online or virtually.
And yes, as writers how could we not put much of what we observe into our stories? It’s such a juicy resource. 🙂 Thanks for the comment, Bob.
Very astute observation about smart phones! Two things come to mind. Smart phones, like other modern or not so modern technology, become a crutch. They are like wearing glasses. Yes, it helps with vision, but also weakens your eyes requiring more severe refraction. Secondly, I fear for many the smart phone is a method of escape from social interaction. Not everyone is an extravert. Some people have more social anxiety and welcome a place to hide. Of course, not being present with others in the moment makes that social anxiety worse.
Good point about the smartphones being a boon to introverts, Jeff, and those with social anxiety. I think as with all advances, there are pluses and minuses and we have to learn to use these things as tools, not crutches. (Like AI!)
I have never been “attached” to my phone unless I was playing games on it. I’ve even forgotten to take mine with me when going to work or the store. I spend a lot of time with my horses and the ringer will startle them. 5 of them are wild horses taken by BLM that no one else wanted. 2 are quarter horses–a mother and daughter that no one wanted when the family had to move.
I spend to much time on the phone or computer, so I make sure that my husband and I spend time without phones, just talking and enjoying being together. He has gastric cancer and I’m not sure how much longer I’ll have him around and I want to spend as much time being there–in real time–as much as possible, not that we didn’t spend time together before, but it is more precious now.
I’m so sorry about your husband, Bobbie. But what a gift that you’re mindful of spending time together now, while you have it. I think it’s easy to lose sight of that–sometimes especially amid battling an illness. I can’t think of anything more important or pressing–and how lovely that you sideline the distractions of your phone that can detract from that time…and pull our attention in so many other areas, as you note. I turned off my notifications a couple of years ago, and I love the peace of it, and not feeling like a trained monkey that jumps every time it makes a peep.
Thanks for sharing this–and I wish you and your husband many joys and meaningful moments together.