We live in an era where everything is instant or almost instant nowadays. You order food at the fast food shop, and you get it in 5 minutes. You can call anywhere, at anytime. Some services, you can get right away, with just an online call. This has led us to think everything that isn’t instant is late. It has made us a little impatient, in my opinion, as a con side. I appreciate the progress our society is making technologically, and in other aspects of our life. This has definitely facilitated our lifestyle, and the way people do business nowadays. However, I personally believe that it’s always important to be mindful if we want to see the sustainable results of our work. 

A common example is cell phone usage. Nowadays, there is so many ways to reach people, phone calls, social media, emails, zoom calls and Skype. One doesn’t need to have someone’s direct contact info to be able to reach them. This means that you can wake up with more than 100 messages to get back to. What tends to happen, is we multi task, and respond to these messages as we carry out our other activities. Our attention gets divided. We are not fully responding, and we not fully present in the current activity. This divided attention makes us tire faster, without knowing why. Responding to messages requires quite an effort. For each person you respond, your body has to gather energy to respond accordingly, and this isn’t an easy task when it comes to several messages. Doing this in addition to our regular work or activities can present quite a task. 

Not only does the constant influx of messages exert us, but if not mindful, it affects our current activities and in person interactions. I might be at a coffee shop, meeting up with a friend. I casually open my phone to show a picture to my friend, I might notice a message or more from different people. I might decide to quickly respond or respond later so that I’m present with my friend. What happens sometimes, these days, is a fraction of people might quickly respond. This distraction affects their interaction with the person they are with, whether they notice or not. In addition, the quick response is sometimes not as deep, as one didn’t take their time to actually respond, so these messages tend to seem shallow. Consequently, the influx of messages ends up affecting both the virtual and in person relationships.

Similarly, one might not respond to the incoming messages. They might put their phone away in order to be fully present with their friend, work or whatever activity they are carrying out. What happens when they eventually open their email, messages or social media, they might find an influx of angry messages of why they didn’t pick up calls, respond to messages instantly, this and the like. It is this reason why I think it’s important to speak about such new dynamics so that we are mindful in the way we interact with ourselves and others. Since we live in a time, where it’s become normalized to combine our activities with texting, and give divided attention, those that choose not to might be blamed for being more mindful about how they approach their interactions. It is this reason why I think it’s important to ponder on such new relationship dynamics so that we are able to enjoy the fruits of our progress and not abuse it.

I hope this opinion piece gave us all something to think about. I will continue to explore more on this topic in the next article.