Clayton Strauch: "Dear Naomi Kritzer: Help Us Put Down Our Phones!"

Dear Naomi Kritzer: Help us Put Down our Phones!

By Clayton Strauch

“What is something that's present in your life or the lives of your friends, but never (or rarely) reflected in fiction, that you wish you saw in fiction more often? I am actually in the process of writing a YA novel based on ‘Cat Pictures Please’ -- so this is an actual burning question that I've been asking teenagers as the opportunity presents itself.” 

            I’m sitting in the cafeteria at a table with six or so friends and while I’m in the middle of finishing my second plate of pasta, I look up and see that five of the six are on their phones. I didn’t think much of it until I started questioning what was happening. What was the point of sitting and eating together if we weren’t going to talk to each other? This act of constantly being on our phones all the time when we are next to each other is a problem present in the lives of me, my friends, and many of my fellow teenagers today. Many of us do not always see how bad it really is until it starts hurting us. It’s extremely easy to stray away from in person social interaction and resort to solely social media, but this is very harmful upon those who do that in ways they may not see. Something I wish I saw in fiction more often would be stories where the actions I described had actual consequences for its characters, especially if that story had a science fictional twist.

            Sure, fiction often features how technology can be our enemy, but it almost always does in an extreme way. That is, the robots from Isaac Asimov’s books and any other different artificial intelligences that decide to kill humanity for a variety of reasons. Something I wish fiction would draw upon more often is how technology-not of the future, but of today-is killing us in a no-so-literal way. It draws us away from each other, it’s scary how easy it is to talk to someone through a screen and how many people prefer that method to actual face-to-face conversation. It may seem odd, but it’s true and we see it all the time in our daily lives, even though it unfortunately may not be addressed in literature very often.

            It would be helpful to have a science fiction story about this problem because science fiction does a great job of making readers feel certain emotions because it uses scientific elements to create some very emotional situations. A great example of this is Tom Godwin’s “Cold Equations,” which tells of a girl aboard a small spaceship that must die even though she doesn’t deserve it in any way. Readers are at the edge of their seats angry and devastated that this poor little girl is required to die and nothing can be done to change it. Readers experience a lot of emotion when reading this text and others like it because they are very strong stories that express a lot of meaning unto their readers. Our overuse of technology like smartphones and social media today, our dependence on them and how they could potentially harm us in the future is something I would love to see applied more into fiction literature. This would allow the teenagers of today, who are the future adults of the world, to realize that there is more to life than how many Facebook friends they have, how many people liked their photo on Instagram, or messaging their friends when they are two feet apart. Adults often scold at us about how we shouldn’t be on our phones all the time. A story written about this that has actual consequences for its characters would allow readers to see the possible damage that can be done in a context where they actually see the potential harm and can learn from it.

            I won’t say that I’m never the one in a room of people scrolling through Facebook or Snapchat, because there have been several occasions where I have been. I feel that if such literature existed, that it would be a way to better resonate with myself, other people my age and anyone else to put down the phone more and physically talk to people in person. This would be much more effective than being scolded by those who don’t use technology because back in their day when they were kids, they got by without them. Because smartphones, social media, and anything else related is very relevant in many teenager’s lives, many would probably be eager to pick up a copy of a story or novel about such topics. If they read a story addressing these problems in an interesting way, they may take something from it and maybe put their phone down a little more often.