I'm sitting in the university library. I came here to write my whole master's thesis, or at least a few pages. I'm in the reading room, there is a lot of people, everyone is whispering to each other, and I already know that my plans to write anything are ruined because I can not focus on anything else but only on that people irritate me with their conversations. So I'm sitting and watching what's going on around me and I came to a conclusion - it is strange that when talking is forbidden in places like library, everyone finds a million topics to talk about, and when there is time for conversation, everyone is sitting with their noses on the phone and they do not want to have a real conversation with their companion. How is this possible? Is not this the paradox of today's life?
I see more and more often a scene like this - a group of friends is sitting in a cafe. Everyone with phones in their hands, busy chatting with friends on Facebook. There is no talk. There is silence. Sometimes even frightening, because there is no interaction between them. Where does it come from? Being always online has become terrifyingly popular. What's worse - people see nothing wrong with it. Strongly annoyed by my observations, I decided to check what the internet says about it. And how frightened I was when I found out that this phenomenon became so popular that in 2012 the scientists gave the name on it "phubbing". It is defined as the behavior of playing with mobile phones and ignoring people with whom you are staying. The term "phubbing" was created after combining two English words: "phone", meaning telephone, and "snub", meaning ignore, disregard.
Internet and technology distracts us and does not allow us to focus, we feel the need to be connected to the network 24/7 and we are afraid that we will miss something when we are not online. Our interpersonal relationships become more and more virtual because it is easier to socialize on the web, it is less demanding - we can talk to several people at the same time, sitting even in pajamas. At the same time, we participate in online and offline life. We don't care about real relations and I don't know what should I do with this facts. I only know that it makes me really sad.
Ooooh, I understand you so well!!! It pisses me off everytime, when I'm with friends and they're doing something on their phones and I have to ask them to listen to me or even to start conversation. And I also find it very very sad that we don't meet each other by accident anymore, because no one talks to strangers in buses or trams, mainly because they're busy searching something online. For me, it is one of the saddest signs of our times. However, I'm trying to understand it somehow, that sometimes you just don't want to talk with anyone, so using your phone is an easy way to hide a bit.
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