Way Beyond

When real life's more fucked up than fiction..

Do you wanna be free of this?

I do not have a smart phone like most people.

But I am beginning to lose count of how many times I want to chuck these things out the window, or "accidentally" run them over with my car.

When I was in Ireland, I flew millions of miles to see a man. During my time he had his phone out and texted his mother goodnight and then hit on other girls.

Later, on a bus in Dublin, I sat in the very back. In front of me sat four people. Next to me sat four more; two on each side.

All 8 of them were looking at their phones.

I took a picture of each and every one of them and had a giggle to myself.

None of them noticed me snapping their picture.

At home, a family member wanted to show me some pictures on her phone.

She gave it to me and as I swiped through, I noticed she began to grow restless.

She asked if she could have her phone back, and I replied in a minute - I wasn't through with the pictures yet.

This was weird. Why was she so restless? I decided to pull a last minute experiment and commented my thoughts on each picture out loud to her.

After a while, her restlessness turned into straight up panic.

The panic turned to anger when I said I was almost finished.

Was this really happening?

Was she seriously mad because I was holding her phone for too long?

All I was doing was looking at pictures...and here someone was right across from me getting bent out of shape.

She complained to my mother, and now whenever my mother wants to show me pictures, she will rarely let me hold the thing.

In a hotel at night, I heard a woman tell her friend she wanted to star gaze.

She pulled out her phone and said aloud.

"Show me the stars!"

The phone replied: This is what I found upon your request; Show me stars.

I saw the woman's face grow into frustration. 

"I didn't want celebrities! I wanted STARS!" She shouted.

I don't know about you, but this is absolutely alarming and very sad.

How did we get like this?!

I understand being protective or obsessive of your dog, and your social security number..

but your phone??

It's ridiculous.

As I am watching the world unfold, and as I see so many people glued to screens I can't help but wonder..

Have we become controlled?

Has technology taken us over?

And I hope people begin to wake up and see how blind we have become.

(Although I'm not going to lie...it's the funniest thing to see all these people who are older and "wiser" than me...look not as wise!)

Author's Note

Reviews

[Lorry]

There was a study done recently that showed people "touch" their phones over 2000 times a day. I'm amazed more aren't killed as no one at all ever seems to be looking at where they are going. My phone is on silent, always. It is for me to decide when it is convenient, not the person sending me inane texts and pictures of cats all day long. I sympathise :)