I’ve just poured a fresh cup of Costa Rican coffee and added
some warm milk and sugar, stirring it slowly, the tink of the spoon against the ceramic echoing slightly across the
open expanse of the dining terrace. It’s warm already on this cloudless morning,
but I’m shaded against the sun and the breeze is fresh. I look across my
breakfast table and I see a golfer taking lessons at the driving range, and
further beyond I take in the beauty of the rising Costa Rican mountains as they
wake to greet the day. The sounds of the songbirds fill the warming air.
But as I sit with my coffee and omelet, taking it all in
around me I can’t help but feel - oh
what’s the word I’m looking for – ok – pissed off. Not at the coffee, or the
breakfast. Not at the attentive wait staff or the little bird that’s hopping on
the stone floor picking up tiny morsels to snack on. I’m pissed off at the majority
of the people around me. Why am I pissed
at them?
They aren’t seeing what I’m seeing. And why aren’t they?
Besides the family of 5 who are noisily enjoying themselves, seemingly the rest
of them have their noses buried in their phones, tablets, or laptops. For the
business travelers I can understand it to a certain point. Sure, I’ve been
there, the need to check a couple of emails or field a call, I get that. But what I don’t understand are the two young
lovers sitting across the way, clearly enamored with each other but not sharing
a word as they stare slack-jawed into their matching iPhones. Do they notice
how the palm leaves rustle in the warm breeze? Do they look up and acknowledge
the waitress as she tops off their coffee? Are they so focused on Angry Birds
that they don’t even fully realize where they are and what they are doing? Are
they texting sweet nothings to each other or writing on each other’s walls?
The dining terrace isn’t quite half occupied, with many of
the diners being business people, tight lipped, travel cases at the ready. A
few years ago it would have been a flip phone and a copy of the USA Today. Now
it’s a smartphone with Bluetooth, with the USA Today App installed. And while
we all have the fancy “phones”, people seem talk less to each other. I’m guilty
like the rest, I like to turn on my phone to check to see what my friends are
up to on Facebook, and to see what “interesting” things are happening on
Twitter. But I don’t want to lose the more important face to face interactions
that we need to have. I know I’m not the first to notice it or to say it, but
the more plugged in we become, we become, well, less connected. The irony that
“Facetime” is an App is not lost on me.
Not long ago at a team lunch for my nine-year-olds hockey
team, the parents were sitting at one group of tables, and the players at
another. Almost all of the kids were playing on some sort of
hand-held/tablet/smartphone….whatever.
Many of them were their own, not their parents. My son doesn’t have one,
doesn’t need one, because as far as we
are concerned, he has enough screen time. So at this team meal he approaches my
wife and tells her not-to-quietly that he’s bored. Nobody is talking, everyone
has their face buried in electronics. As parents I get that it keeps the kids
occupied; the portable babysitter. But what are really teaching them? Soon
after his comment, coach walked over to the table and told the kids to put them
away. I think he understood.
A few days earlier a couple of co-workers and I took a road
trip to an ocean side beach a couple of hours south of San Jose. We happened
across a beach side restaurant for a couple of beers and some chicken wings.
The three of us looked out over the black sand beach and watched as a kite
surfer ripped up the waves, a couple of dogs running up and down the surf as
they barked madly at his kite. The Imperials were cold, the wings were hot, and
the conversations varied from bad work trips to good vacations. At the table next to us were two couples,
blender drinks in hand, iPhones at the ready. I could hear them talking about
posting pictures immediately to Facebook, snapping self- portraits with the
beach behind them as a prop. I couldn’t help but ask myself what was more
important to them….the fact that they were on vacation, or the fact that they
could tell everyone that they were on vacation. During the time we were there
they never stepped one foot out on the sand. I suspect they were worried about
losing their WiFi.
What we are losing is the art of conversation, of interaction,
of looking across the table during a meal and sharing a story and communicating
an idea. Pixels will never replace the look in your tablemates eyes when you
tell them something funny, horrific, happy, or sad. A smiley face icon will never feel like a hug. Maybe business today
forces us into too many e-mails, too many action items, too many applications
that while they are supposed to make things easier, make us pay the price of
ignoring the world that exists outside of our screens. I know for a fact that
my work inbox has over 4500 items. It upsets me that I know that. The irony
that I’m posting this on a blog isn’t lost on me either.
I had never been to Costa Rica before, and that morning was
the last morning that I was going to be there as my work trip was winding down
and I leaving San Jose that day. I wanted to soak it all in and enjoy the
surroundings of a place that I may not have the opportunity to visit
again. I felt a little sad as I finished
the last of my coffee and stood up to leave. The little bird was still hopping
from place to place, finding small crumbs. I said “Buenos Dias” to my waiter
who smiled back at me. I felt the warm wind in my hair, and I heard the sharp
ping of a golf ball off of a club. I noticed all of these things. I also
noticed that not one of the diners around me even looked up as I took my leave.
