Whilst your average tube car or bus journey would fail to suggest that people are taking a step back from being transfixed by their phones, the tide does appear to be turning.
Our cellular devices and all that goes with them are certainly cemented in our society.
I often think that I’d never see anywhere new if it weren’t for the ease of a myriad of map apps, or the ability to research cafes and the like as though I’m preparing to pen a thesis.
But increasingly, there seem to be stretches of time when we’re choosing to live in the moment a little more than we once were when these brick-sized windows to seemingly everything were a novelty.
It’s the luxury of technological familiarity at work in many ways. We had the moment of wonder and now we’re lucky enough to be able to choose as and when we want to use the services it has to offer.
Nevertheless, the positive point stands; we would undeniably be lost without them, but pixels no longer seem to be our priority.
It might be an overstatement, but despite instant messenger being true to its name in terms of delivery, ironically I and my friends are increasingly using it more as a convenient, free postal service.
Days, weeks, even months, go by with messages sat waiting for a response, not because we don’t care or want to talk to each other, but because we want to dedicate time to crafting a thoughtful response.
We may not have quite such an abundant need for stamps these days, but the phrase “I need to catch up on my correspondence” is far from being out of circulation.
The shift has brought with it a new expression too; “I love that we don’t have to talk, or message, but that every time we see each other, it’s exactly the same.”
Words to that effect are uttered almost constantly now and whilst they bear an ever so slight allusion to apology, the sentiment at their core is that finally we’ve once again started to see friendship as being much more than constant communication.
No one needs reams of pointless prose to know who they can rely on.
With the performative pressure of a prompt response removed, friendship in its truest form flourishes.
Spontaneity has started to return to our sentiments and texts aren’t the only attestation to thought.
In realising this, our relationships are enriched.
Because trusting someone regardless of when you last tapped ‘send’ is emblematic of something enduring.
And there’s something newly pleasing, freeing, in the knowledge that putting down our small screens does no harm to picking up where we left off in person.
Ultimately, it’s memories, not messages, that matter.
I know which I’d prefer to carry around in my pocket.
Modernish 