The other day, on a street, I saw a young man walking towards me, his nose buried in his phone. At first, I was tempted to move aside to let him pass, but I changed my mind and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to see: would he look up and avoid me? No, not at all, he bumped right into me. Nothing malicious, he apologized, we laughed, and I told him, "You're lucky, I'm less hard than a traffic signpost." He started walking again, and a few meters further on, still on the road, he was glued back to his screen.
Like you, I'm seeing this kind of scene more and more often. And while it's not so bad on foot, it also happens on bikes and in cars: much riskier. I see parents or nannies no longer looking at the child in their stroller, but at the phone in their hand: it's disheartening. At bus stops, café terraces, or restaurant tables, all I see are people glued to their screens, even if they're with others. Until now, it bothered me a little, but I told myself, "You're too old to understand the times."
Then one day, during a car trip where I was driving, I had an argument with my wife. After our conflict, there was an icy silence in the car. So, she grabbed her phone and became engrossed in it, leaving me to drive. First, annoyance; then perplexity. I wished she had been forced, like me, to reflect a little on our conflict: to dwell on it, get annoyed with me, or question herself. As I was beginning to do. But no, she gave up, turned her back on the other (me!), and moved on to something else.
And at that moment, I start theorizing in my head about the damage caused by screens. Not only do they deprive us of seeing beautiful things, of savoring good moments, but they also distract us from the need to reflect on what is unpleasant in our lives. They distance us from reality, from what is good and what is difficult in our existence. How unfortunate.
We are sick, more than we realize, sick with AAD: Attention Disorder to Others. Which is always complicated by SAD (Attention Disorder to Self): when we are on a screen we forget our bodies, we blink less, we breathe less well. And by AAD (Attention Disorder to the World): the screen blinds us to the beauty and complexity of the world around us.
The problem is serious, the remedy simple and inexpensive: when I arrive somewhere, if I have to wait, first I look up, breathe, observe the surroundings, the people, for three minutes. When I walk, I walk; if I scroll, I stop. When I'm with others and I don't know what to say, I try to think for a bit, instead of escaping into screens. So, shall we try it for a week?
Illustration: Everyone at home with their screens (houses in the Cotentin).
PS: This column was originally published in Psychologies Magazine in January 2025.