Mike was always in love with technologies. Being a programmer by himself, he found that creating and innovating something is really important for his life.
At the same time he was really obsessed with his smartphone. It was his best friend for every occasion possible.
The first thing in the morning after turning off the alarm clock was 15-20 minutes of browsing.
He always was starting from Facebook because the feeling of missing out important events of his friends was painful.
Then he smoothly was switching to Twitter for chasing some fresh news, the majority of which he skipped because of time limitation or irrelevance to his life.
Third component of his browsing routine was the inbox. How can you miss this one, right? As if the world is impatient and waiting for immediate response.
During the day he was always online. He truly believed that if somebody cannot reach him, that’s showing his disrespect. Notice the mindset, it is really important.
His phone was really smart, thus the envy was glimpsing from time to time. He knew he was also intelligent but he constantly was in a level up mode, which lead to development of new and new applications that people were grateful for.
One day however he was in a real rush and accidentally forgot his precious device. He realized that when headed to his office. A deep desperation landed on his heart. It was brutal and harsh.
He was feeling as if the part of his body was taken and left alone. He couldn’t reach it and couldn’t touch.
Obviously there was another substitute – laptop. He charged up a little bit but still it was not that great.
However in about 2 hours he calmed down, and just simply let it go. In fact, he was happy that he left his smartphone afterwards. Deep inside his soul there was a slight realization that he was indeed addicted.
Once he figured that out, he decided to check whether it is his only problem or a major decease.
To verify his assumptions he went to his colleges and asked them to go out and have lunch. There is no better activity that shows the depth of human interaction than simple lunch.
Those guys were Mike’s best friends so they agreed instantaneously. He was pleased to have such amazing people in his life.
Once they got to the restaurant, a show began.
Each of them has ordered some pizza and a cup of coffee and they started to talk. The first 5 minutes it was okay, but then those annoying sounds of notifications started to come around.
“Oh, somebody left me a message. I have to respond”, Jennie told.
“Guys, some stranger just liked my photo”, Tiffany shouted.
“Mike, you have to check this out man, I recently upgraded to new version of Android. It is awesome”, John expressed with enthusiasm.
There you have it. Mike was sitting and just freaking out of fact that we all are dependent on phones. Yes, they help us a lot, especially when we are in a trouble. But sometimes we stop controlling ourselves, and choose artificial relationships over the real ones.
To be honest, Mike wasn’t surprised. He was the same, he just didn’t notice it.
The saddest part was when he turned and saw a couple that were not talking at all. They were staring at this little piece of screen separately, the girl in hers, the guy in his. It was hurting to him so he decided to show it to his friends.
“Look at these people. Why they are doing this to each other?” Mike asked curiously.
There was a big pause and amazement on the face of his friends. After a while they turned off their phones, and finally started to have a real, meaningful conversation that Mike was waiting for today.