The New Newspaper

Over the weekend I attended a faculty concert in Doty hall. I arrived a little early so while sitting in the waiting area, I took out a book I was reading for class. A few minutes later an older gentleman walked over to me and basically said, “I’m impressed you’re reading and

What I hope I look like reading in public

not just on an electronic device. People these days will be with each other and be on their phones and not talk out loud”. I looked over at him and tried to explain that it was for a class I was desperately behind in, but he just looked so happy that someone wasn’t glued to their phone I dropped it.

However, it got me thinking. Is it really any different for me to be reading a book and not socializing with anyone, than to have my phone out? Usually with my phone I’m liking someone’s status on Facebook, snapchatting a friend a dumb picture or something really cool I saw, or even just texting. Somehow this idea of being secluded in my own fantasy world is now so novel that I was being applauded for doing something I need to do by myself.

Snapchat really brought these friends together. Now they don’t even have to have a photo forever, just 10 seconds!

This begs to question, is our constant use of our phones really breaking down communication or have we as a society always gravitated towards being anti-social. All I can think about are those pictures of men going into work on trains reading the paper. Why is that a more acceptable than checking up on my twitter feed?

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