Oniontown Pastoral: Where Is Everything?

I was waiting at the allergist’s office with five other patients. My culprit is dust mites. I don’t know what my comrades were in for—nobody talked to each other—but one thing we had in common was our ubiquitous smartphones. Mine was pocketed, as I’m trying with uneven success to cut back. The others palm-cradled theirs and thumbed up and down, side to side.

I’m not scolding. The addictive properties of the pricey gadget are formidable. Consider what one man’s iPhone 11 can offer with a click and a swipe: blood glucose level; the time and location of appointments as well as directions; the weather forecast; bank balances; The New York Times and Washington Post; social media friends’ comings, goings and dinings; the number of steps covered today and calories burned; and so on, ad infinitum.

In the mood for Brahms or Britten? Do I want to contact somebody? Need to pay for parking? Meter EZ has $4.30 banked to cover me. How many readers have visited my blog? Should I take a photograph or video? Is the supply of dried mealworms for my birds adequate, or should I order more? Shazam, snap, abracadabra, finis.

I’ve listened to over 150 Audible books and researched scores of sermons thanks to Steve Jobs’ brainchild. At 6:10 this morning, the iPhone woke wife Kathy and me up and gave us a nine-minute snooze. Later, the Insight Timer chimed to begin and end my meditation.

Pick a question, any question. The answer is probably located on the oracle you’ve got with you. Last week when Kathy and I were visiting a botanical garden in Maine, her phone identified exotic flowers. Would Claw’s be open on our way back to the Airbnb for a bite of lobster? “Hang on, I’ll check.”

Such a marvel of convenience and efficiency technology has wrought. “Where is anything and everything?” you ask. It’s nestled in your claw, awaiting your command.

“John,” you say, “it sounds like you’re concerned about so much utility being jammed into a tool not much bigger than a pack of Pall Malls.” Without judging other patients, I’ll just share my own weaknesses.

Calling the smartphone an oracle isn’t far from the truth. Where is my life? Is anything worthy of my attention at present? Am I bored? Am I being productive? Could I stand some entertainment or a diversion? Solutions are close by.

According to the Pew Research Center, nine in ten Americans in 2024 own smartphones, which exert a gravitational pull on our minds and bodies. The unarticulated query ever in the human imagination is, “Where is everything?” That is to say, in the waiting rooms we all occupy, we look to fill loneliness or stillness with meaning. Short of that, stimulation will do.

Platforms like Facebook and YouTube have their laudatory functions, but they also provide existential potato chips—believe me, I consume them.

Kathy cultivates a riot of flowers outside my writing hut. Birds visit, and I often obey the Sermon on the Mount: “Behold the fowls of the air.” Why then do I watch videos of fools munching ghost peppers or folks melting into tears when surprised with puppies? Why? Because the adage “never a dull moment” can be assured for $148 per month.

The trouble is, the bill doesn’t come with a warning that technology is a great servant but tyrannical master. I constantly reach for the smartphone—I mean, constantly. Because it tells me everything, accidentally leaving it at home feels like courting disaster. Many young people don’t need to reach for their devices, as they always have them in hand.

Kvetching about kids refusing to put down their dad gum phones is popular among oldsters, but we neglect a simple fact: Smartphones are designed to grab users by the eyeballs and never let go. The teenager you see gazing slack-jawed at a tiny screen must fight an addiction to turn away.

Back in September of 2017, Jeanne M. Twenge made this disturbing claim in The Atlantic Monthly: “The results could not be clearer: Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy.”

The author’s prosaic prescription? “If you were going to give advice for a happy adolescence, it would be straightforward: Put down the phone, turn off the laptop, and do something—anything—that does not involve a screen.”

I now qualify for senior citizen discounts and have grandsons who are as attached to their screens as I am. I also have the funny feeling Twenge is talking to all of us. I’m trying to listen.