“Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others.”

— Harriet Goldhor Lerner

I’ve been meaning to have this little talk with you for a while. I hope all is well in your world, or that you are at least finding ways to cope with your challenges and take care of yourself. 

One of the best ways you can do that is to make sure you stay engaged with the people who love and care about you. 

And I don’t mean for you engage digitally. 

Okay, on the subjection of connection…

I’ve got a bit of a rant brewing here and it’s not my normal way of thinking or writing. 

But folks, this important. Like, life-altering important.

Over the last 15–20 years, I’ve been increasingly disturbed by what’s happened to our society. And although you might think this is going to be about mobile phones, there’s another point to be made and it’s the one that matters most.

So please bear with me. 

At first, mobile phones were meant to give us more freedom. We didn’t have to stay home waiting for that call anymore. Our doctors, accountants, mechanics and solicitors could get back to us with that news we’d been waiting for. If a family member was sick or in some sort of crisis and we were expecting an update, we could still get on with our errands or get to the airport to pick up Aunt Mildred or whatever else we needed to do.

But somehow, it didn’t take long for that freedom to be complete dissolved. Not because of mobile phones, but because we have developed an insatiable need to answer, check or reply to every ring, beep, buzz or musical notification that someone in the world wants our attention.

And we wonder why we’re so damned exhausted all the time.

That freedom has morphed into the longest, heaviest chain on the planet.

I know this will freak out the younger generations but buckle up and check out how it was in the days of dinosaurs.

Our self-imposed prisons began innocently enough in the early 1970s when suddenly, you could have phone jacks in every room in your house.

No longer did we have just one phone mounted on the kitchen wall or in some other central and public area of the house. For you “younguns”…I know, shocking, right? 

But that’s how it was. One phone. Stuck to a wall. Where everyone could hear you. I’d tell you about the days before that when not everyone even had a phone but that might send your young minds into a complete meltdown. 

Anyway, suddenly we had jacks and our phones had become movable. Oh, what freedom!! You didn’t have to have that awkward “first phone call with a teen crush” with your mother doing the dishes three feet away or your little brother leaping around singing the “sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G” song loudly at your feet.

If you were really lucky, you had a jack in your bedroom and could move the phone there for privacy or — gasp! — your family might have even been lucky enough to have an extension phone. 

What? A house with two phones?

Yes! Yes, it’s true, folks, you could actually have two separate telephones in the same house! Same phone line (so your mother or your little brother or the plumber or anyone else in the house could be eavesdropping), but at least it was a second option for a place to talk — hopefully somewhat more private than in that damned kitchen, the hub of most families. 

Next in the “phone freedom” line-up is the extension cord. Now that phones weren’t wired into the wall by the phone company, you could buy a 10-foot or oh, my! — even a 25-foot length of cord. This meant that even if you had only one phone, as many homes did, you could stretch that sucker so it might reach your bedroom or a quiet back porch or somewhere away from listening ears. 

So far, the phone freedom thing was working pretty well. 

Fun Phone Freedom

Then things really picked up steam on that front. I remember when “Call Waiting” was introduced in 1979 so there was no more “GET OFF THE PHONE I’M EXPECTING A CALL!” hysteria. Especially for those hoped-for first-date invitations after giving your number to someone. Perish the thought that your mother might want to chat with a friend for a while. You’d be climbing out of your skin, fearing you’d missed that golden moment when your crush tried to call. And might have second thoughts and never call again.

And Call Waiting meant no more frustrating busy signal either. Is there any more annoying sound on the planet than that nasty BEEP BEEP BEEP? 

Actually, yes. There are many. A screaming baby when you don’t know what’s wrong and can’t stop it. The frantic wailing of sirens, knowing someone is in desperate trouble. 

But you get my point. That was a bloody irritating sound. How many times did you hear it and think, “Are you EVER going to hang up that bloody phone???”

So yay, “Call Waiting” changed all of that. Unless you were so popular that you’d get three calls at once, and had one conversation going, someone on hold, and a third person trying to get through. Unlucky Number 3 got the irritating BEEP BEEP BEEP.

The phone freedom of Call Waiting was wonderful. For about six minutes. 

Sadly, it wasn’t long before good manners went out the window as many people would interrupt a conversation with, “Hang on, I’ve got another call” — click…..and you’d wait…and wait…and wait…

This has only got worse over the years. It’s bad enough to rudely cut people off mid-sentence to take a call that isn’t urgent, but to then keep them hanging while you have another conversation is outrageous. If you have to interrupt at all, perhaps you could tell the second caller you’ll ring them back and finish talking with your first one??

At the very least, if Call Number 2 is urgent, ask them to hold while you deal with Call Number 1 by politely finishing that call quickly or by saying you’ll call back after you take the one that needs your attention right away.

Manners, people…(for those of you who have forgotten them)

Eventually, we had Caller ID to further give us freedom. Woohoo! Now you could ignore the telephone solicitations, the three-hour-whiner, the “ex” who won’t leave you the hell alone (until there was the option to keep a number “private” when making call so you could still get broadsided when they used it). 

At least we could see who was calling if we were in the middle of something and we could make a note to ring them back.

Freak-out Phone Freedom

Then came answering machines, which freaked out a lot of people for ages before we started getting comfortable with them. I remember those early days of leaving a message and feeling oh, so painfully awkward and nervous, stumbling over my simple request to ring me back. 

But weren’t those answering machines delicious in terms of giving us freedom? Now you could leave the house and know that if your doc had test results or your lawyer was going to tell you yes or no or here’s what you have to do next, you didn’t have to stay within a 10-meter radius of your phone at all times.

Next, we got portable landlines. Wow! How splendiferous were they? Suddenly, you could carry your phone around the house. You could still have that soak in the tub or run to the loo or down to the laundry room and know you wouldn’t miss that all-important-call.

You could even sit outside — if you weren’t too far from the base of the phone. 

I remember how exciting it was to freak out the “phone is still wired into the wall” people by saying, “Yeah, I’m in the tub right now” (didn’t it seem elegant to be able to talk to someone while having a soak??). Or “I’m in the garden right now.” And they’d be ooohing and aaaahing on the other end of the phone.

It was still something of a novelty to be able to move around your house with your phone. And to see who was calling so you could “screen” like a celeb. And you could “take another call” like a bigwig.

But that was all about to change.

The great “phone freedom fuckup”

Enter the end of civilisation as we knew it. Enter the beginning of humanity’s greatest misery and a leading source of self-and-other destruction. 

Enter the mobile phone. 

They crashed into our lives as those enormous, hideous cinderblock horrors with about 12 feet of telescoping antenna. Sure, they were helpful for people with jobs that kept them on the move, like realtors (estate agents in the UK). But for the few who could invent a reason as to why they thought they needed one, they just wanted to look cool. They thought the cinderblocks made them look important. And heck, didn’t that mean they actually were important?

Now you could seriously freak out those wired-in-wall-phoners! You could invent an excuse as to why you were ringing them from Walmart when truth be told, it was just for the freak-out factor. 

Or more likely for the “Look how important I am” effect.

Ah, yes, back in the Dark Ages, only a few had the luxury of being cinderblock owners, leaving many envious and wishing they, too, were that important. It would take a while before the cinderblocks became regular-brick-sized and as they grew smaller, more people were jumping on board and signing up for theirs.

And yay! Almost everyone could go anywhere at any time and they never had to miss a call again! The poor answering machine. It gathered dust next to the landline and the Maytag repairman (does anyone even remember him?). Suddenly, people were having conversations in shopping centers, line-ups, restaurants, even in public bathroom stalls (didn’t they realise sound carries over the phone line??!?!?!) 🙄🤦🏻‍♀️

With this fabulous (NOT) little invention, now you could go out for dinner, enjoying an evening with the friend you haven’t seen in ages. You’re right in the middle of your meal when some sort of beeping or buzzing or chiming sounds. Instantly, she reaches into her handbag and without so much as an “Excuse me,” hits the little green button and starts talking. 

I remember when my (now ex) husband and I invited a new friend over for dinner for the first time. We had just put the food on the table and as I was sitting down and about to serve, her phone rang. 

Without a word to us, she picked it up. “Hello?…Oh, hi! No, I’m not doing anything right now…How are you?…blah blah blah…” 

My husband and I looked at each other in shock, disbelief, and I’m pretty sure there was a good dose of disgust mixed in there as this unbearably rude young woman sat and had a 20-minute conversation about nothing while our food got cold.

We couldn’t bring ourselves to be as rude as she was and eat without her. Although with this being 20 years ago, I’m a lot different now and if it happened today, I’d tell her to take her call in another room and I’d be eating without the effing cow. 

A Dangerous Turning Point

Texts. Apps. Notifications that someone somewhere on the planet ‘liked’ a post, sent a message, posted a GIF or some other life-altering (LOL!) bit of drivel that we HAVE TO SEE RIGHT NOW OR WE WILL DIE!!!!! YES, DIE!

You can’t have an in-person conversation anymore without people constantly interrupting the speaker by looking at their damned phones with every buzz or ping. 

And don’t tell me you’re still paying attention to me. Neurological science tells us that it is impossible to have our attention fully on two things at the same time. You might catch the general idea of what I’m saying but you will miss bits of it.

And every time you glance at your damned phone, you are telling me, “My phone and these notifications from other people elsewhere are more important than you.”

It. Is. Beyond. Rude. It is entirely disrespectful, to say the least.

This sort of behaviour has got worse over the years. I don’t need to elaborate. All of us know exactly what I’m talking about. 

But here’s where it has become dangerous.

Somewhere along the way, there was a deadly switch. Suddenly, if people knew you had a mobile phone, they expected you to answer no matter where you were or what you were doing. And like Pavlov’s dogs, you had become trained to respond to that bell, or beep, or buzz. If the mobile rang, you “had to” answer it. 

And if you didn’t, there were annoyed questions. “Why didn’t you answer? You had your phone with you!” 

I’ve always been partial to “It’s none of your f****** business.” Or “I was having a life.” Or “Is there a really good reason why you think I should answer the phone when I’m shopping or have my feet in the doctor’s stirrups or when I’m driving?”

It’s bad enough that we have developed an expectation of being able to reach people anytime. 

We have shot ourselves in the proverbial foot by believing we have to answer every call or reply to every message NOW.

No longer is a mobile phone an instrument of freedom, initially designed to allow us to connect anywhere, anytime, when we needed it.

It has become a much-abused gadget that we have allowed to strip us of our freedom. It has led to us feeling completely burned out from being too connected to people all over the planet all the time and in the wrong ways, and not nearly connected enough to those in our “heart circle” of close friends and family — and even less connected with ourselves than ever.

Too many people think that because we’re suffering from digital information overload, actual phone calls are an intrusion and we should ignore them. 

Um…am I the only one who sees how backward that is? Am I the only one who misses being able to pick up the phone and call a friend without worrying that they’ll be annoyed? Am I the only one who remembers the absolute joy of getting a call from a friend in the middle of the day or evening, just to chat and catch up on life? 

And if it wasn’t a good time, you’d say, “Hey, I’m just having my dinner (or whatever), I’ll call you back when I’m finished!”? 

We’ve become too available all the time for every little inconsequential thing and with it, an increasing expectation on both sides that all of it needs an immediate response. And while we’re busy being outrageously available, we become increasingly disconnected and isolated. Anxiety and depression are at an all-time high, even amongst children and teens. GUESS WHY???

No wonder we’re burned out. No wonder we’re exhausted. No wonder we feel cut-off and alone. 

But hear this: the phones aren’t the problem. It’s our attitudes toward using them.

We can turn off notifications from social media. We can make the effort to treat our phones like “just phones” and focus more on meaningful connection with loved ones and less on the trivial drivel that eats up our precious time. Stop wasting so much of your time on meaningless “likes” etc. from people you’ll never meet in person and spend more of it talking with those who are most special to you.

If you’re fed up with the exhaustion and constant output in this way, you can change it. You have the ability to get out of your self-imposed, disconnected, phone prison that keeps you feeling isolated, and allow yourself more actual, meaningful (re)connection with your loved ones and yourself.

What would that look like? What would that feel like?

Spiritual Arts Mentor and Master Teacher, Liberty Forrest, guides you in discovering who you are, why you’re here, and how to follow that path.

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