School let out 15 minutes ago.  By now, the halls are mostly empty.  You’re walking through the hallway alone — this is already a bad situation.  Why is no one walking with you?  What, do you not have friends or something?  As long as no one rounds that corner at the far end of the hallway, you’re in the clear.  If nobody sees you walking alone, it’s like you were never by yourself at all.

Then, disaster strikes.  That girl you know a little bit, but not well enough to have a one-on-one conversation with, comes into full view.  You make eye contact from across the hallway and quickly look away.  Painful.  Awkward and painful.  There’s an impossibly long distance between the two of you.  When you pass her, should you say hi?  Are you at that point in your relationship?  What if she doesn’t say hi back?

More importantly, where do you look in the meantime?  Straight forward, like you’ve got somewhere to be and are determined to get there?  Should you look over to the side and pretend to be interested in that worn-out, months-old flyer for a school club you’ve never heard of before?  Neither option is very attractive.  There’s only one surefire solution: check your phone.

Take that phone out of your pocket and stare at it blankly.  All of a sudden, you look preoccupied.  You pick your head up and say hi to that girl as you pass by her, almost as an afterthought.  “Wow,” she must be thinking, “he’s got better things to do than say hi to me.  He must have a lot going on in his life.  What an interesting, attractive, and sophisticated young man.”

For many SHS students, the act of “checking one’s phone” occurs with such high frequency that it transforms into a subconscious action.  Students begin to check their phones without realizing that they’re doing it.  Phones are left on top of desks, face up, drawing attention every time a new notification lights up the screen. Checking one’s phone for notifications becomes as common as tapping one’s foot or twirling a pencil through one’s fingers.

The constant need to be preoccupied or entertained has been amplified in today’s society by the invention of iPhones.  Every idle moment where there had existed the possibility of sitting back and absorbing one’s surroundings has been lost to electronics.  Louis C.K, a well-known standup comic and comedy writer, mentions this in an interview with Conan O’Brien in which he explains why he does not plan on buying iPhones for his children, “You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something.  That’s what the phones are taking away, is the ability to just sit there… that’s being a person, right?”