Concentration

From endless traffic to nonstop construction, if you live in a busy city, the noise is inescapable. Research has meticulously analyzed 11 key factors to map out the noisiest corners of the United States. From the constant hum of commuter traffic, to population density, to proximity to airports, and construction noise, the study paints a vivid picture of how urban density transforms our environment — and often leaves our ears ringing.

The survey finds nothing beats the racket taking place in the loudest state in the country, New Jersey! New Jersey takes the title thanks to its 1,267 residents packed into every square mile and a mind-boggling 50,374 vehicles traversing every square mile of road each day. Nearly 14,567 flights annually add to the sonic assault.

To put Jersey’s noise level into context, researchers gave the state a noise score of 52.87. That was more than 10 points more than the number two state on the list, Massachusetts (41.31).

Rounding out the top five are Pennsylvania (3rd), Florida (4th), and the tiny state of Rhode Island (5th). At the opposite end of the noise spectrum, other states offer a reprieve from the urban cacophony. Specifically, Alaska ranked as the quietest state in the U.S. (8.02), followed by Minnesota (49th) and Montana (48th). With minimal population density and limited air traffic, these states provide a sanctuary of silence.

While the study provides a fascinating look at noise levels, it also raises important questions about the potential health impacts of constant urban sound. As cities continue to grow and infrastructure expands, the battle against noise pollution becomes increasingly critical.

You are in a coffee shop, meeting with a friend over steaming lattes. While you are talking, your conversation partner seems engaged: They hold your gaze, smile at the funny parts, and nod warmly. You think they are a good listener, and you are excited to see them again soon. However, were they really listening? If you probed their mind during the conversation, what were they actually attending to and thinking about? Were they really listening attentively, or just creating the impression of good listening?

According to one recent study, we our attention wanders about 25% of the time. The researchers concluded:

“Speakers consistently overestimated their conversation partners’ attentiveness—often believing their partners were listening when they were not. Our results suggest this overestimation is (at least partly) due to the largely indistinguishable behavior of inattentive and attentive listeners. It appears that people can (and do) divide their attention during conversation and successfully feign attentiveness.”

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Listening to others—paying attention. (2) Listening to God—how often does our mind wander in our prayer life? (3) God listening to us—he never fails to hear us.

Urban safety experts have long worried about the impact of distracted driving. However, a new study by researchers suggests we should be equally concerned about distracted walking.

Researchers have uncovered alarming differences in behavior between pedestrians engrossed in their mobile devices and those who remain alert to their surroundings. The study, conducted at two busy intersections in downtown Vancouver, used advanced video analysis techniques to examine the behavior of pedestrians and drivers during near-miss incidents.

Published in the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention, the findings paint a concerning picture of how our smartphone addiction is affecting our safety on city streets. Distracted pedestrians, those using their phones for texting, reading, or listening to music, tend to walk slower and maintain closer proximity to vehicles compared to their non-distracted counterparts. They also rarely yield to oncoming traffic and are less likely to change their walking direction, even when dangerously close to vehicles. This behavior suggests a significant decrease in awareness of their surroundings and reduced navigational efficiency. This creates a perfect storm for potential accidents.

The next time you find yourself reaching for your phone while walking, remember: the digital world can wait. Your safety, and the safety of those around you, depends on staying present in the physical world.

Boredom is a universally dreaded feeling. Being bored means wanting to be engaged when you can’t. Boredom is a different experience from the idleness of downtime or relaxation. Being bored means wanting to be engaged when you can’t, which is an uncomfortable feeling.

In one famous experiment, people were asked to sit quietly for 15 minutes in a room with nothing but their own thoughts. They also had the option to hit a button and give themselves an electric shock.

Getting physically shocked is unpleasant, but many people preferred it to the emotional discomfort of boredom. Out of 42 participants, nearly half opted to press the button at least once, even though they had experienced the shock earlier in the study and reported they would pay money to avoid experiencing it again.

Social psychologist Erin Westgate said, “Boredom is sort of an emotional dashboard light that goes off saying, like, ‘Hey, you’re not on track. It is this signal that whatever it is we’re doing either isn’t meaningful to us, or we’re not able to successfully engage with this.”

Boredom plays a valuable role in how people set and achieve goals. It acts as a catalyst by bringing together different parts of our brain — social, cognitive, emotional, or experiential memory. So, when we’re firing on all neurons, we’re at our most imaginative and making connections we otherwise never would have.

So go be bored, and encourage your kids to be bored too. Maybe you’ll find a new and creative “Eureka!” moment in your life, or imagine a great big new future for yourself or the world. Boredom is a worthwhile adventure.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Boredom can play a valuable role in how you set and achieve goals. Use it to motive you to action! 1) Meditation; Prayer - Don’t reach for your smartphone or the streaming device the next time you are forced to wait. Instead, use this time to set your mind on God: Read the Word, pray, meditate on God as revealed in nature. Destress yourself by centering your thoughts on God. 2) Help; Loving others; Service - You can also shift your focus toward others and their needs. Who can you help today?

Pollution. When you hear that word what do you think of? Perhaps dangerous gases are being emitted into our atmosphere. Garbage floating around the ocean. Sick animals due to toxic food. But there's another pollutant lurking in our society. An invisible one that we encounter every single day. Information. It's in our phones, televisions, text chains, and email threads. It's packed into devices we wear on our wrists and in the checkout lines at the grocery store.

In our modern society, escaping the barrage of information is impossible. But are we equipped to handle it? In a 2024 letter published in Nature Human Behavior, scientists argued that we should treat this information overload like environmental pollution. It may not affect our drinking water, but it affects our brains at every turn.

The brain is the most complex organ in the body. But the brain can only process a certain amount of information. When we exceed that peak level, it can almost feel like our brain is filled to the brink and totally frozen, incapable of performing its most basic duties that help us get through our days.

When we reach that point of paralysis, we can't process and act on the information we consume. If this is feeling familiar, you're not alone. According to the Real Time Statistics Project, as of January 2023, there were nearly 2 billion websites on the internet. 175 million tweets were sent every day, and 30 billion pieces of content were shared monthly on Facebook. How was it possible to not get distracted by all that information?

Of course, technology is useful. We can look up healthy recipes or determine if a headache is just a headache or something more problematic. But because of modern technology, we're all slaves to the amount of information we can consume. The American Psychological Association defines information overload as the state when the intensity of information exceeds an individual's processing capacity, leading to anxiety, poor decision-making, and other undesirable consequences.

An article on the website First Things advocates one simple way to improve your prayer life—stop multitasking. David Ousley writes:

Multitasking is not your friend. The whole idea of multitasking as something good is based on the assumption that life is about getting things done. I admit that the world often operates as though this were the case. ... But it is false. Human life, and Christian life, is more about love than about accomplishments.

If we cultivate distractedness, as, for example, by multitasking, then we will bring distractedness to our prayer. If, on the other hand, we cultivate attention, this will bear fruit at the time of prayer. I would suggest therefore that we renounce multitasking, and strive to do one thing at a time, so far as that is possible.

Ruben Roy is a managing director at Stifel Financial. He dialed in to hear the chief executive of a healthcare company discuss its latest results. During the Q&A, Roy asked the speaker to elaborate on his remarks by saying, “I wanted to double-click a bit on some of the commentary you had.”

“Double-click” is one of the fastest-spreading corporate buzzwords in recent years. As a figure of speech, it is now being used as a shorthand for examining something more fully, akin to double-clicking to see a computer folder’s contents. Some say “the phrase encourages deeper thinking.”

Reuben Linder, owner of a small video production business, says, “These days, with the rise of technology and a more hectic corporate life, people need reminders to stop and examine what matters—to double-click, if you will. The term is simple, but it’s really profound.”

Reuben tries to carve out time to go to a café twice monthly with a notebook and engage in reflection. “I’ll double-click on my business, double-click on my life” he says. “I double-click on everything now.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

In our daily lives as believers, we might apply this idea to things such as obedience, love for God, Bible reading, and prayer. Double-clicking on these things is needed now as much as any time in history.

Alexander George writes in Popular Mechanics:

Ready for the one genius tip that will make you a better winter driver? Here it is: Look where you want to go. Yep—that’s it. It’s so simple, and so effective, that every pro driver does it. But it’s so unintuitive that you have to practice to get it right.

That’s because our very reasonable instinct is to instead focus on where we don’t want to go. When the most urgent threat to your bodily safety and insurance premium is the car ahead of you or a guardrail, you watch that thing. But when you’re at speed, you involuntarily direct yourself towards wherever you’re focused. It’s formally known as target fixation, a term you’ll see in literature for fighter pilots and motorcycle racers.

Rather than watch the bumper of the car you’re following on the highway, or a guardrail between you and steep cliff, look further in time. Fix your eyes on the middle of your lane, at the spot you want to be several seconds later, even if that means ignoring the car in front of you. Your peripheral vision will still catch any unexpected braking or road debris.

It took me a full day at a winter driving school to believe. On a track made of snow and ice, I drove a Lexus LX into a turn with too much speed and deliberately lost traction. Most runs, the rear end would fishtail, sometimes turning me completely around. A few times, usually after the instructor disabled the stability control and ABS, I’d end up sliding almost perpendicular to the direction I was pointing. Even in a controlled environment, it’s terrifying.

The instructor correctly pointed out that I was looking right at the wall of snow I wanted to not hit. “Look where you want to go,” he said, and fixed almost everything I was doing wrong.

I haven’t found any activity where this doesn’t help — surfing, cycling, skiing. Try it the next time you’re out on the road.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In the same way, when faced with a temptation, instead of always looking at the temptation, bad habit, or trouble that you want to avoid, “look at Jesus” (Heb. 12:2). Fixing your eyes on our Savior and focusing on your relationship with him will get you safely through whatever trouble, temptation, or worry is troubling you.

New York Times Columnist Ezra Klein notes his theory why the Internet feels “so crummy” these days. It puts us into “shame closets.” He explains:

A shame closet is that spot in your home where you cram the stuff that has nowhere else to go… It can be a garage or a room or a chest of drawers… as the shame closet grows, the task of excavation or organization becomes too daunting to contemplate.

The shame closet era of the internet had a beginning. It was 20 years ago that Google unveiled Gmail… Everyone wanted in. But you had to be invited. I remember jockeying for one of those early invites...I felt lucky. I felt chosen.

A few months ago, I euthanized that Gmail account. I have more than a million unread messages in my inbox. Most of what’s there is junk. But not all of it… According to iCloud, I have more than 23,000 photos and almost 2,000 videos resting somewhere on Apple’s servers. I have tens of thousands of songs liked somewhere on Spotify. How many conversations do I have stored in Messages, in WhatsApp, in Signal, in Twitter and Instagram and Facebook DMs? There is so much I loved in those archives... But I can’t find what matters in the morass. I’ve given up on trying.

The social networks made it easy for anyone we’ve ever met, and plenty of people we never met, to friend and follow us. We could communicate with them all at once without communing with them individually at all. Or so we were told. The idea that we could have so much community with so little effort was an illusion. We are digitally connected to more people than ever and terribly lonely nevertheless. Closeness requires time, and time has not fallen in cost or risen in quantity.

If you are heading into Manhattan off the George Washington Bridge, you can't miss the cluster of four 32-story apartment buildings built right over the interstate. 300,000 cars go whizzing underneath the buildings each day. This makes the bridge the nation’s busiest crossing.

Built in 1964, the Apartments were to be a shining monument to efforts in easing New York's chronic housing shortage. But almost immediately, the development was controversial; people worried that the exhaust from the traffic might be a health hazard to the residents.

Researchers began going floor-to-floor, checking on the well-being of school children who lived in the Apartments. Something was definitely going on. The kids living on the lower floors had lower reading scores than the children who lived on the buildings' higher floors. In fact, it was a linear relationship: the lower the floor of the child's apartment, the lower their reading scores.

But wait—further research showed it wasn't the exhaust pollution. It was noise pollution. The children in the lower levels were exposed to exponentially more traffic noise. All day, everyday, the kids heard the endless honking of horns, the screeching of brakes, and the continuous roar of hundreds of thousands of engines zooming by. Kids learned to block out all the sounds of traffic so well that they pretty much started to block out everything (even the good "noise").

None of these kids had hearing problems: all the kids had hearing tests, and they sailed right through. Cornell professor Gary Evans said that the answer is as simple as this: "The kids began to tune the noise out." The kids became too good at blocking noise, they tuned out all noise, including speech.

Trying to remedy the situation, the school installed some sound-absorbent panels at the ceiling. The paneling only reduced the volume by 5 dB. It was still awfully loud. But it was enough of a difference that the following year's preschoolers outperformed their predecessors. Their teachers reported that the kids were speaking in more complete sentences. They understood more of what was being spoken to them, and they were better understood by others.

But even with this research, it took until 2004 for the managers of the apartments to take action and install noise-minimizing double-pane glass windows.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This could be used as a good reminder of how much "good" can get lost in today's cacophony of “noise” of TikTok, social media, commercials, text messages, phone notifications, and the noise surrounding everyday life. We scarcely have any quiet times to meditate on God’s Word and to pray, or have a quiet conversation with a good friend.

You might call it the sound of a rebellion. Young people in the Phoenix, Arizona valley are buying old manual typewriters and using them as a creative escape from the distractions of computers and the internet. It's what good old-fashioned typewriters do not do that’s attracting this younger generation.

Max Johnson brought his grandfather's 1964 Smith Corona to school last year; it was a novelty. Max said, “I inherited it. Rummaging through a closet of his old things. (When I bring it to school) other people are like ‘Whoa, a typewriter.’”

Max was tapping into something else. A generation interested in a machine because of what it does not have. No power cord, no internet connection, no temptation to jump online. No AI prompts. Max went on to say, “So with computers there's distractions everywhere. And if you have ADHD like me, you could get nothing done. But with a typewriter. It's just you and the keys.”

Bill Wall owns the Mesa Typewriter Exchange which has been there since 1947. He says, “I have customers from probably eight years old on up.” Unlike Bill Wall's grandfather who started the company, Bill's business is driven by collectors. Wall continues, “I would say half my customer base is probably under 30. A lot of them have a big vocabulary. They seem to have high IQs. A lot of them are homeschooled. They're very creative.”

A recent Type-In Event at the Chandler Library was organized by 21-year-old Jeremiah Buckovski. He shared, “I like the analog stuff. It's a lot more real than a computer. And I like how it's part of history. I like how they sound. I like how they feel.”

Reporter Joe Dana asked a young teen, “What's it like to write something that's permanent? You can't go back and change it.” She replied, “I think it would make me a bit nervous, hoping to make no errors.”

But permanence can be a positive. Max Johnson takes his typewriter to school every day using it for special projects during free time. He typed up one-of-a-kind letters to a local legislator and to his girlfriend. He said, “With a typewriter, what you said is what you said and nothing can change that.”

You can watch the short video here.

There’s a particular trend that has come to dominate videos on social media. It’s called “retention editing,” because of its ability to keep users visually engaged, and it’s typified by quick pacing, loud sound effects, and cutting the natural pauses that typify live speech. With the rise of short-form video on apps like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, the style is everywhere.

Dara Pesheva is a teenager who moonlights as a video editor for content creators. “Every clip should be under two seconds,” says Pesheva, who says that flashing graphics, subtitles, and movement are staples in the average user’s video diet. Noah Kettle of Moke Media Company, refers to this as the “Beastification of YouTube,” referring to influencer superstar Jimmy Donaldson, known on his channel as “MrBeast.”

MrBeast uses a similar style, punctuated by ambitious action sequences, and with over 250 million subscribers, his aesthetic choices have a huge trickle-down effect as many other users copy it hoping for similar success.

“It’s designed to be addictive,” says David McNamee, who heads a social media brand agency. “It’s like a slot machine with bells and whistles that are keeping you entertained because the [video] is so bright and it’s loud. It doesn’t matter what the content is, because your brain is being told this is entertaining because it’s flashy.”

But even MrBeast is now having second thoughts. On X he tweeted out a plea: “get rid of the ultra-fast paced/overstim era of content.” His most recent videos have trended toward better storytelling, yelling less, and letting scenes breathe more. Though these have resulted in longer videos, his views have only increased.

Pesheva says retention editing is problematic long-term because of its prolonged impact on the end user. “People around my age can’t focus. They have very short attention spans. They’re used to TikTok, and so editors have to adjust for Gen Z. They have to adjust to the fact that people can’t keep their attention on something for more than a second if it’s not entertaining.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

In this frantic world of information overload competing for our attention, it is crucial to learn to slow down and take time to evaluate and absorb the information we are consuming. This is especially true in our reading and meditating on the Word of God.

It’s frustrating to public safety officials that there is so little publicly available data on the role that smartphones play in distracting drivers in auto accidents. According to an article in The New York Times, there is no database of crashes attributable to cell-phone-related distraction. This is even though plenty of states have laws on the books against cell-phone-distracted driving.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in 2021 only one percent of fatal car accidents were attributed to cell-phone distraction, and only eight percent of all non-fatal accidents involved cell-phone use. But those figures only account for the times when cell phones are explicitly mentioned in police reports. This is usually because a driver admitted being distracted or a witness saw them on their phone.

Regulatory agencies know this is a problem, but other than vague declarations to look into it, they don’t seem to be able to make much headway. Meanwhile according to AAA, road fatalities have reached a 16-year high. It seems the ultimate responsibility to reverse this trend falls on drivers themselves, who often admit driving distracted in anonymous surveys. A recent study found that 50 percent of drivers admitted to having engaged in device-related distraction in the last 30 days.

According to the CDC “driving at 55 miles per hour while sending or reading a text is like driving the length of a football field with your eyes closed.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is important to focus on what matters in life. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by secondary things. If we do, life becomes more difficult and even dangerous.

Cameron Perrin, a 26-year-old software engineer, talks about his experience with the productivity hack known as "monk mode:"

As a person who can easily fall into procrastination and a lack of focus, I found myself constantly struggling to achieve my goals — and I couldn't afford to be so distracted. Every workday, I would start strong but would soon get derailed by scrolling social media, reading articles, or just aimlessly browsing the Internet. By the time I caught myself, my train of thought would be gone and I'd have to spend five minutes just figuring out where I left off.

Then I came across an article about "monk mode," which is a method for giving your full attention to whatever you are working on for a set period of time. (The article describes “monk mode” as adopting the isolation and self-discipline practices of monks).

I began by committing to two-hour blocks of monk mode at a time. I eliminated as many distractions as I could. I turned off my phone notifications and blocked social-media sites on my laptop since I knew I was spending way too much time on these activities. I calculated I was (wasting) one to two hours a day. And when factoring in the time it would take to refocus and pick up where I left off, it was roughly three hours of time wasted.

To help maximize my results with the technique, I created a strict routine. The night before each workday, I made a list of the tasks I needed to accomplish the next day and set a time frame for how long I would commit to “monk mode.” Then I woke up at 5 a.m., had coffee, read my Bible, and then entered “monk mode” to begin tackling that list.

“Monk mode” changed my life by showing me how powerful my time really is when I'm disciplined and sticking to a routine. By eliminating distractions, I was able to dramatically increase my work productivity and truly enjoy my downtime.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This technique is not only important for a career, but it can also apply to our spiritual life. Distractions can easily divert us when we are trying to read the Bible and pray. Intentionally isolating ourselves from the phone, internet, social media, and other interruptions can help us focus and enhance our time with God.

One icy night in March 2010, 100 marketing experts piled into the Sea Horse Restaurant in Helsinki. They had the modest goal of making a remote and medium-sized country a world-famous tourist destination. The problem was that Finland was known as a rather quiet country, and the Country Brand Delegation had been looking for a national brand that would make some noise.

The experts puzzled over the various strengths of their nation. Here was a country with exceptional teachers, an abundance of wild berries and mushrooms, and a vibrant cultural capital the size of Nashville, Tennessee. These things fell a bit short of a compelling national identity. Someone proposed that perhaps quiet wasn’t such a bad thing. That got them thinking.

A few months later, the delegation issued a slick “Country Brand Report.” It highlighted a host of marketable themes, (but) one key theme was brand new: silence. As the report explained, modern society often seems intolerably loud and busy. “Silence is a resource,” it said. It could be marketed just like clean water or berries. “In the future, people will be prepared to pay for the experience of silence.”

People already do. In a loud world, silence sells. Noise-canceling headphones retail for hundreds of dollars; the cost of some weeklong silent meditation courses can run into the thousands. Finland saw that it was possible to quite literally make something out of nothing.

The next year, the Finnish Tourist Board released a series of photographs of lone figures in the wilderness, with the caption “Silence, Please.” Eva Kiviranta, who manages social media for VisitFinland.com, explains “We decided, instead of saying that it’s really empty and really quiet and nobody is talking about anything here, let’s embrace it and make it a good thing.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Bible also emphasizes the need for occasional restful silence in our pursuit of God. Prayer (Luke 5:16), seeking God’s will before making decisions (Luke 6:12), and rest from a busy ministry (Mark 6:31) all led Jesus to model withdrawal to quiet places (Matt. 14:13).

Do you find yourself distracted? Well, you are not alone. A recent survey on distractions in the workplace found that employees experience an average of 77 distractions a week, or one distraction every 31 minutes.

These distractions included:

• Responding to personal communications (such as online chats, texts, and calls)
• Checking email
• Meetings
• Browsing the internet
• Having unplanned conversations with co-workers
• Monitoring children and managing the household

The problem with these kinds of distractions is that they make a dent in overall productivity. A study by the University of California Irvine discovered that it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back into the task once interrupted. Distractions can leave employees feeling disconnected and overwhelmed as they have to make up for lost time.

It's old school in Jacob Dannenberg's college dorm room. He uses an alarm clock to wake him up, handwritten notes for reminders, and an actual wristwatch to keep track of time. No, it wasn't 1999. It was an Adelphi University course called "Life Unplugged" taught by Professor Donna Freitas, where students did the unthinkable--handing over their smartphones. One student said, "I'm freaking out, I could probably cry right now.”

The students voluntarily turned in their phones to the university's public safety officers so they wouldn't be tempted to cheat. Then they challenged themselves to wake up on time, take notes, communicate, and find their way around without the slew of apps they usually use for those things. They made plans to communicate with family and friends via email or land line phones, and designated emergency contacts to assuage any fears.

Professor Freitas also gave up her phone as part of the experiment. "I’ve become more and more concerned by my students’ inability to sustain attention. I’m interested in them just experiencing life and conversation and relationships without constantly grabbing for their phones."

The experiment was designed to make students ask themselves "What does it mean to live constantly interrupted?" At first, some of the students said they were worried about how they would fare. But a week later, they had seen some real benefits.

Jacob Dannenberg said, "Everything is perfect right now. I'm having a lot better relationships. It's a stress-free environment, no worries about social media." Student Adrianna Cigliano added, "I think it's really refreshing and relaxing … I was able to fall asleep a lot easier.”

They managed to find their way, even without GPS for a week. "I just had to take the same route everywhere," one student joked. They were also more productive. Adrianna said, “Doing homework was 100 percent easier. I got it done faster; I was in the zone.” Students said they look forward to living more in the moment, with their heads up more often, notifications off, and the "do not disturb" on.

During the late-Medieval period, London had a strange law on the books—each entry gate into the city had to keep a musician on duty. This could be a dangerous job—city gates were where attackers and other threatening outsiders first appeared. It’s like border patrol nowadays, but they gave the job to musicians.

As strange as it sounds, musicians took charge of many essential services back then. These hired municipal minstrels started showing up everywhere in Europe around the year 1370. They typically played wind instruments—including trumpets, trombones, fifes, bagpipes, and recorders—as well as percussion.

To the modern mind, musical skills and police responsibilities have little in common, but in an earlier age the two roles often overlapped. Musicians not only helped defend the city gate but might also be required to patrol streets at night. In Norwich in 1440 a tax was instituted to pay the waits for their watch—and these musicians were required to take an oath of office. In Germany, a minstrel was expected “to acquit himself well as a swordsman.”

Why musicians? The most obvious answer is that musicians were ideal first responders because they could sound the alarm in case of a major disturbance. Certainly, a loud horn or drum helps in that regard. This signaling capacity of musical instruments also explains their longstanding use in military operations.

Possible Preaching Angles:

In the same way, every follower of Jesus is called to stay awake, to stay at our post, to guard and protect, and pray for the “city gate” where the Lord has posted us.

Smartphones have changed the way we inhabit public space and more specifically, how we fill our time while waiting. Consequently, day-dreaming, thinking, speculating, observing, and people-watching are diminishing arts. So, what happens when you put down your phone, look up and start noticing?

Though hotly contested, the social, physical, and cognitive effects of our slavish devotion to the smartphone are said to include symptoms and risk factors such as neck problems, limited attention span, interrupted sleep, anti-social behavior, accidents, and other health risks.

Rarely mentioned in this litany of side effects is how phone use has changed the way we inhabit public space and, more specifically, how we fill our time while waiting. Every moment of potential boredom can now be ameliorated or avoided by all manner of tasks, modes of entertainment or other distractions conveniently provided courtesy of our minicomputer.

Some years back, in response to my own smartphone symptoms, I decided to look up from my screen and look around. We constantly use electronic devices to distract ourselves from the tedium associated with waiting. Instead, we could see boredom as an invitation to look up and then look around, to people watch, daydream, or take the time to observe and develop our own [observation of the beauty of the world] beyond hyperlinks and tags.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Make a New Year’s resolution: Don’t reach for your smartphone the next time you are forced to wait. Instead, use this time to set your mind on God: Read the Word, pray, meditate on God as revealed in nature, destress yourself by centering your thoughts on God.

You’re out with some friends having a nice dinner. But one has been talking on his phone for the last ten minutes, and a second is managing to fork food into her mouth while still using both hands to type text messages. And the fourth member of your party is preoccupied with tracking down some YouTube video he has to show everyone.

So, you’re out with your friends for dinner but it seems an awful lot like eating alone. We’ve all experienced something similar and put our friends through something similar. So how can we return a little decorum to our dinners-out?

One suggestion making the rounds is something called “The Phone Stack.” After everyone orders their meals, all smartphones are placed in the center of the table, one on top of another, face down. Though the course of the meal it’s simply a given that one of these, or all, are going to buzz, bing, or sing. But here’s the kicker: no one is allowed to grab their phone until dinner and dessert is done. If someone feels they just have to pick up their phone, that’s okay, but then they also have to pick up the check for the night!

Can there be exceptions made? Maybe someone is a doctor on call, or a volunteer member of the local fire department, and just needs to check their messages. Yup, allowances for that kind of thing can be made. But for the rest of the group this is a fun way of ensuring we all connect with one another, rather than with our devices. And for those dining-in nights, a variation can be done involving who is going to do the dishes!