Commentary
Tamara Kelly

Keeping in contact with high school friends across the country and around the world is now easier than ever.

Checking Facebook feeds has turned into a daily occurrence. But is there something as a society we may be opting out of?

While maintaining a relationship on social networks is as simple as a few key strokes, are we loosing focus with the relationships that are standing in front of us?

We’ve all done it. Using our phone or ipad while a friend sits by quietly waiting to talk or getting up in the middle of a conversation and answer the phone, completely ignoring the friend beside us and becoming easily distracted by the device in front of us. Somehow we forget how it feels to be the person waiting for a response when a friend or loved one ignores us to take a call or text.

Being able to text on the go or take a phone call in the car is great and honestly I wouldn’t be able to go without it myself, but when the call or text can wait two or three minutes, why don’t we put the phone down and handle it later? I’m not sure why it seems so addicting to take the call, feeling as though we’ll miss out in some mind altering news that really never comes.

Even if we don’t respond to the text, we still feel compelled to see who it’s from. Maybe for the instant validation it brings or a rushed feeling of importance, either way, could we be saying to the person in front of us, “You’re not important?” The only reason I bring this up is if I’m doing it, I’m sure others are too.

Putting down the phone and giving the person in front of us undivided attention can seem so paralyzing on the thumbs. But making the social connection before us may be the relationship fulfillment we are really seeking. Pierce’s own CIS (Computer Information Systems) professor Samuel L Scott also weighed in on this topic, “I see people plugged in and not seeing the people next to them.”

Taking the time to show we care, let the call go to voice mail. Consider the time with them as important; show them the validation we all seek to secure. It’s telling them without words, “You do matter and I appreciate you.” It’s all too easy for us to continue on throughout the day caught up in the chaos of our lives not to notice the people around us.