phone hate

I re­sent the fact that I can’t be on my phone in pub­lic with­out fear that some wag with a cam­era and rudi­men­ta­ry knowl­edge of Pho­to­shop will turn it into a so­cial state­ment.

I know it’s an Amer­i­can tra­di­tion to start The Hat­ing and de­clare some­thing The Dev­il every few years. And this newest bout of techno­pho­bia re­al­ly blows.

I get it.
It took over a half-decade to pry the flip­mode phone from my re­sent­ful lit­tle grip. I miss but­tons. I hate touch-screens.

But, I can car­ry in one hand the sum of the world’s knowl­edge and can ac­cess it through a few fin­ger taps – how can that not be cool?

I used to lie abed, dream­ing of stuff like this. If I had a hov­er­board I would lit­er­al­ly be in sci­fi ter­ri­to­ry. So what if hav­ing a lit­tle com­put­er I can take with me every­where is pre­vent­ing me from in­ter­act­ing with my fel­low hu­mans?

What would I be do­ing if I wasn’t on my phone?

I’d be read­ing with ear­buds in my ears. And if I didn’t have that? I’d prob­a­bly find some oth­er way to amuse my­self that didn’t in­volve talk­ing to oth­er peo­ple. Be­cause I don’t feel like mak­ing new friends every­where I go.

If my phone has be­come a bar­ri­er to so­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion  **SPOIL­ER ALERT**  it’s be­cause I have pur­pose­ful­ly cho­sen to make it so.

It’s my right to amuse my­self as I see fit. It does­n’t mat­ter how im­por­tant my ac­tions on the phone are, whether re­ceiv­ing a life-or-death text or just play­ing can­dy crush, that’s my god­damn choice.

I don’t need to be guilt­ed into in­ter­act­ing with peo­ple. There. Make a Pho­to­shop cam­paign out of that.

—rachel gard­ner

Flom­mist Rachel Gard­ner cur­rent­ly writes weird fic­tion with a hor­ror bent. Find her at Greet­ings from the Waste­land, which up­dates week­ly. Copy­right © 2016 Rachel Gard­ner.

Il­lus­tra­tions by flom­mist Dan­ny Joe Gib­son. Copy­right © DJG.

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