I woke up in a panic. A sweat.
I couldn’t find my phone. All my friends were there. They were helping me find it like it was a buried treasure. Whether they were helping me because they’re good friends or because they didn’t like seeing me so distraught didn’t really matter.
My brain has been conditioned to think that a lost phone is a major life problem.
That’s the most alarming issue with my dream. The tension and panic within the sequence suggested the dream was far closer to a nightmare.
But why do I think this way?
There might be a few reasons:
- We spend the majority of our free time with our eyes glued to our devices. It’s become our best friend – and it’s always there for/with us, no matter what.
- Scrolling through our apps everyday passes the time in a way that makes us feel like we’re doing something productive. Somehow, we have yet to get to a point where doing this feels as lazy as watching television all day. We’re simply lying to ourselves about it – for now at least.
- A missing phone now suggests “I’m off the map.” What if my wife needs me? What if there is an emergency? We can’t handle feeling so unimportant and unavailable anymore.
I’m not going to comment on whether these observations are good or bad representations of the evolution of humanity. For now, they’re just honest observations. None of this should come as a surprise.