Things That Will Happen if I Don't Take My Phone Out Right Now

Image: Adrian Ilie

They are terrifying scenarios: you're on a first date. You're in a live theater performance. You're at your mother-in-law's for dinner, and she despises any form of modern technology. These situations require you to be mobile phone free. You may have your friend in your pocket or purse, but that's as close as you're going to get to that pretty, colorful glass screen of All Things Interesting. After a while you're getting antsy. You might even break a sweat. Anxiety is building. Over what?  Scaachi Koul for The New Yorker knows: 

"Things That Will Happen If I Don’t Take My Phone Out Right Now:

5. Someone will send me an e-mail marked “URGENT” and it will, for once, actually be quite urgent (probably about free food), and I won’t see it until it’s too late (all the free food is gone).

10. I will have to spend at least one second of my life not agonizing over how everyone else’s life seems better. (How are youalways at a cottage? Who drove you there? You don’t have a car and I don’t understand.)

 15. In-person small talk."

See all nineteen of her identified phone-free tragedies at The New Yorker.


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I grew up in the home phone and pager generation so it perplexes me when I see people who are gathered together socially, but not talking to one another and only looking at their phones. Some people don't really seem to be living in the present moment. No offense to the millennials, I just don't get it.
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No, not everyone owns a phone. I assume this author does, and is simply poking fun at the insecurity of people who can't bear to put down their phones for any reason, often putting the need for social media validation ahead of their personal lives, their jobs, and their safety.
I can see your point, though; it is terribly selfish of someone to ask for your full attention when they're not as entertaining as your Candy-blasting Saga Heroes game or the whimsical status update of Facebook friend #2026.
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She sounds more like a busybody to me. We all own phones. Some prefer to use their phones in the company of others, especially if they are as boring/annoying as the author. If you can't get someone's undivided attention and bask in your glory, then the problem may not be the other person or their phone.
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