The Screen Between Us: Who Are We Without Our Phones?
Imagine surrendering your identity, connections, and memory the moment the clock strikes 8, and placing it in a phone holder for the rest of the day.
For students at MGC New Life Christian Academy, this is no longer a thought experiment but the new normal, designed to have students be more engaged and attentive to their environment rather than their screens. As expected, students reacted to this new rule with a mixture of both frustration and reluctance. After all, most of us grew up as digital natives with easy access to the internet. Gone are the days of rote memorization, now that the entire history of the world lies at our fingertips.
But what happens when we’re disconnected from this system? Will we fail to function, or will we rediscover what it means to learn, focus, and interact without a screen? This is the paradox the gadget policy forces us to confront. Phones promise to make us smarter and more connected, yet their absence in the classroom reveals just how much we’ve let them think, remember, and even socialize on our behalf.
Over the years, we handed our phones the power to shape our habits and intentions. Take learning, for instance, which has changed so much since the advent of mobile phones. Students once had no choice but to scribble notes during lectures, processing the material as they wrote. However, with phones, we would simply default to taking pictures of the whiteboard, thinking we would review it later. The more convenient option, in this case, leaves us less engaged, less focused, and less capable of truly retaining knowledge. We no longer need to listen carefully or actively process what’s being taught. We rely on a photo to “remember” for us, but that convenience often comes at the cost of real understanding. Our dependence on phones has trained us to let the device do the remembering, while our own minds sit idle. Moreover, phones are often active temptations for us, trying to pull our attention away from the whiteboard to our screens with each constant buzz of a notification.
Our phones are continually littered with notifications from Snapchat, Viber, or Messenger. While these platforms make it easy to stay in touch, they often make our conversations superficial. Conversations today often center on maintaining streaks, exchanging quick reactions, or sending short replies, rather than truly engaging with one another. Some of us message “lol” (short for laughing out loud) or add a laughing emoji despite not even cracking a smile in real life. Online interactions become less about genuine emotion and more about keeping the conversation alive, even if neither side is truly engaged. At the same time, phones keep us away from the people around us. There’s a reason why some enforce a “no phones at the dining table” rule. Many are more invested in their online chats than in the company sitting right beside them. Ironically, while phones can connect us with those farthest away, they can also create an invisible barrier between us and those who are closest to us.
However, it’s not fair to completely rule out phones as a tool that could transform our society for the better. Phones provide convenience in accomplishing everyday tasks and obtaining the information we need. But that may be the very root behind the problems in our academic engagement, communication, and identity loss. Our overreliance on phones has reached a point where misplacing or losing them can feel like losing a part of ourselves. For some, their entire schedules, memories, and conversations exist only within that small device. Instead of using phones to enhance their lives, many people allow their devices to consume their daily existence, depriving themselves of the social interactions and skills that people need in order to survive in the world outside their phones.
Although it is too early to say whether or not the gadget policy is effective, it has certainly made us wonder who we are without our phones. For many of us, the device has become more than just a tool; it has become an essential part of our lives. Yet if we look back at our childhood, it wasn’t always this way. As kids, we lived just fine without phones. We played outside, paid attention in class, and talked to each other without distractions. So why does it feel impossible to live without them now? We should be asking ourselves: am I in control of my life, or is my phone in control of me?
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