They beep. They ring. They buzz. It is a wonder we can resist these ever so tempting devices at all! With the siren song crooning from our back pockets, it can be hard to focus on our immediate reality instead of the infinite digital world available on our phones.
Yet, we all know there are certain times when we must put our screens away, and Winter Break is one of them. We swallow our fear of socializing with the three-dimensional people and slip our beloved phones into pockets and purses.
For years, our parents have scolded us to keep phones out of sight during family and dinner times. We have pocketed our phones obediently, and we have raged outright rebellion. We have slammed doors and stomped feet at the injustice of unplugging. We have practiced civil disobedience in the form of Instagram posts and led covert operations against our tyrannical parents with under-the-table-texting. All the while, we have reproached our parents for simply not understanding that fact that our entire lives are contained within the few inches of beautiful technology they so ignorantly despise.
Now, however, it seems our parents have suddenly abandoned the crusade for which they have so vehemently fought. They battled for years, but our parents have, one by one, succumbed to the pull of Apple and Android.
On Christmas morning, they were the ones with eyes glued to glowing screens. They were the ones quietly fretting over the number of Instagram likes during New Year’s festivities. When our flights were delayed, they were the ones who could not wait to post tales of strife on Facebook.
Our parents, the final bulwark against the total permeation of technology into our lives, have fallen and fallen hard.
There is no one to admonish them for overuse, no one to revoke texting privileges, no one to ground them for breaking the No Cellphones at Dinner policy that stood ironclad in our ‘tween days. There is no telling the depths to which our parents’ cellular addictions will sink if left to their own devices.
The time is nigh for an intervention.
