You want to know if you are important? Here is a simple test. Leave your phone at home and go on with your day and when you get back find out how many people texted or messaged you.
I do not like bringing my phone with me. I find it irritating and cumbersome. If it were not for family and business, I would leave my phone at home. The family reason is obvious, the business is a necessity but otherwise, no. I can do well without a phone. Others, on the other hand, cannot survive without their phones with them. They sleep with it, eat with it, go to the toilet with it, wake up with it, take photos with it and whatever it comes to mind. That I cannot understand. You cannot live without your phone? Most people cannot.
Go to a restaurant and see what people are doing. Walk along the streets and witness how so many people have bended necks defying death by nonchalantly walking. Never mind the trucks, buses and the manholes. Go anywhere actually and watch the people oblivious to the surroundings. As long as they have their phones, all is well with world.
Aside from the most obvious reasons, we have our phones because we need our fixes. Some people smile when they get a message or a text. Others laugh like their whole happiness depends on what they receive. Still others use their phone for entertainment. Games, movies and yes even ebooks. But honestly I would prefer a good old fashioned hard copy of a book with its touch and smell. Smelling a phone is not fun at all.
The power of a phone is not so obvious but it is potent. Try this. When you are talking with someone keep your phone close. It does not matter if it is turned upside down. The message is clear. Then try the other way, when you are talking with someone, hide your phone. A small gesture of not showing your phone is highly symbolic. Keeping the phone close is saying I am here but I am also with my phone. But if I keep my phone I am telling you, I am all yours. You are the only one that matters now.
We seem to have all lost a sense of importance. When families gather to eat, when friends get together, when meetings happen, the most common and obvious gesture is the whipping out of the phone. There was a picture on social media recently that looked disturbing. Thousands of people were waiting for the New Year fireworks and all of them had their phones focused on the place where the pyrotechnics would take place. We have lost the grace of the moment and replaced it with the transitory video of some thing. We have sacrificed the gift of the present and exchanged it with permanence of the transitory.
Look at the insanity when a new phone is introduced. People line up, people squander savings all for the vanity of saying I got one. I rarely change phones and when I do it is because I have used every bit of it. I really do not need all the other accessories.
Life is supposed to be simple. Not disturbed, or clunky. Or missed.