The Shame of Disconnection (and Why You Should Stop Feeling It)
A culture built around instant messaging is a culture with wildly unrealistic expectations. Many don’t consider it socially acceptable to have a long response time on a text. If you take too long to respond, you are ignoring or even slighting someone. But why?
It is true that I have my phone on or near me most of the time, but it’s also true that it’s almost always face down and silenced. Just because it’s close by doesn’t mean that it’s on, and even if it is on, I shouldn’t have to drop everything to respond to your message.
I don’t like email either, but at least it’s considered reasonable to respond within twenty-four to forty-eight hours, not two minutes.
Some people seem to think everything and everyone should be at their disposal over the phone or email at every hour of every day. But just because you can reach someone doesn’t mean you should expect them to be able to or even to want to reach you in return.
I’ve overheard conversations on multiple occasions in which people say things like, “It always takes her three hours to respond to my texts. That’s so weird.” But why is it weird? Because you expect to be the center of your friend’s focus simply because you typed some words and sent them to her phone? That’s just not how the world works. Or, at least, it’s not how the world should work.
Along those same lines, I never thought one of my professors would have to state multiple times that they may not respond to an 11pm email about an assignment due at midnight. Should that not be obvious? Just because teaching is their job during the day doesn’t mean that they’ll spend all their nights waiting idly by their keyboards, eager to respond to their students’ messages.
Unless you believe you’re a character living in a simulation, there’s no reason why you should expect everyone around you to exist for your convenience. People have their own lives. They exist outside of the contexts in which you know them.
That’s not to say it’s not an incredible thing to be able to connect with anyone, anywhere, at any time, but it’s not sustainable, and it’s not good for us.
Sending a text message is simple enough, sure, but to me, it can be just as exhausting as having a face-to-face conversation, sometimes even more so. Often, I decide my sanity is worth more than someone else’s expectations. And if they don’t like that, we’re better off without each other anyway. Because while spending my time constantly checking my phone keeps me connected to the Internet, it disconnects me from the world that’s physically in front of me.
People will preach about how we all need to spend less time on our phones, especially in reference to my generation, Gen Z, and the younger Gen Alpha, yet some of the same people have taught us that disconnecting from technology is a bad thing. They’ve taught us that we should constantly have computer and phone screens before us, and we should accept being treated as objects for someone else to push around. We can’t have both. Pick one.
I’m sick of hearing about how we’re dependent on devices that have been shoved down our throats for nearly our entire lives. This world, this state of existence, is not of our creation. Don’t make it our fault.
I could go on about that, but I’ll save it for another day.
The bottom line is that it’s very difficult to be connected to both a communication device and the real world at the same time. So when I have to choose between one and the other, and my choice is to connect with the real world, why am I made to feel like that’s something shameful? It feels weird to me that choosing not to stare at a screen all day is somehow considered rude.
People who know me well know this about me. Most of my friends and family know that if I don’t answer a call or respond swiftly to a text, it’s not personal. It’s just that I find my phone mentally and physically draining, so I limit the time I spend using it.
It’s not that I would ever wish to lose the privilege of being able to communicate remotely, but that communication doesn’t have to be constant. I don’t need to be texting and calling people every day to maintain my relationships.
These are feelings that have only grown as I’ve gotten older. As my responsibilities increase, and I become more strained, the more I resent the unfair expectation to maintain the attitude of a people pleaser both in public and private. When I’m alone, I want to be alone. And I should be allowed to be.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be messaged, just that I don’t want to be expected to engage with digital conversations in the same way that I would engage with a conversation in-person. Because it’s not the same thing.
This is a concept that I think a lot of people are starting to gain a better understanding of. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. And all any of us want is for the idea that you are not entitled to our time and attention at any second of any day not to be such a niche thing.
