Something I love doing when I’m at home by myself is playing video games. I’m sure the fact that there are literally hundreds of reviews on this blog does a good job of illustrating that point. Similarly, I very much enjoy reading – or even posting a status on Facebook and watching the likes pile up.
But something I enjoy even more, is spending time with friends. For me, no matter how great the things I mentioned above may be, they can never equate to the joys of things which actually exist within our world. This was made especially clear to me a couple of months ago when a friend stayed over at my house.
They went to have a shower and, as they did so, I took out my 3DS to pass the time. I was in the middle of playing through Donkey Kong Country 3 and when I played, I was on one of my favourite levels. It is, for reference, also one of my favourite games. Normally, that would be a particularly exciting activity for me, but it just felt quite flat. The reason was that I had a friend near – yes, they were unavailable at that exact second, but I was still in the social-mindframe and when I’m in that mindframe, it makes me realise that other activities really pale in comparison.
So, for me, it’s kind of hard to understand how some people can be so completely captivated by their mobile phones. I appreciate that some people use their phones to ease anxiety and others need to communicate with friends about urgent subjects, but I think the majority of people are just doing it to look at their likes or to see the latest Instagram photos. If asked, I am sure they’d tell you that they value the things in reality more than the things on their phone, but in practice the phone would get the priority.
I think that’s quite sad, because it essentially means that people are often not focusing on the things which are most important to them. It all comes down to the fact that checking your phone can actually be quite an addictive thing. A lot of people are offended when they meet up with somebody and they’re on their phone (it doesn’t personally bother me) but, really, it’s the person on their phone who is missing out on what they really appreciate in life.
