Field Note #2: Phone Note
A cat with its own laptop, a horrific speech by a transphobic senator, a Shrek edit, a woman eating raw organs, a cute outfit, a crying mom, and an AI-generated audio of Biden singing Ice Spice. Swipe, swipe, swipe. It doesn’t end. You know it never ends, but sometimes in the back of your mind you seem to think there is - and you’ll get there, and that’ll be the end of that. Then you hear something - maybe the distinct sound of the trolley rounding the bend, or someone yelling, but usually just something intangible, and you look up. You’re in a station waiting for some train, or on the trolley, or in the car, or in your room, in the dark.
Maybe it’s silent, like the mornings on the BSL. Every single person is on their phone or has headphones in, and the resulting silence is deafening. Some days, not a single person makes a sound, despite standing shoulder to shoulder. Everyone’s chosen a world of their own creation over this one. They’re almost not there, nearly bridging the physical gap between this space and the one on their phone.
Or maybe the people stand around you, waiting as well, their heads bent at uncomfortable angles, standing and slightly swaying like lone trees in a forest. Old people, teenagers, middle-aged people, toddlers. No one is immune, definitely not you.
Every time you look up from your phone you’re disoriented. Your head feels foggy, and something in your stomach feels not quite right. Your senses come back to you - your shoulders hurt, your headache seems worse, and all of your emotions come rushing back. Annoyance at school. Anger at the world. Sadness from who knows where. It’s uncomfortable. You reach for your phone again, just to get away from it. You know it’s making everything worse, but you can’t resist. Just for a moment. Only a few minutes…
You almost missed your trolley. You forgot to text your friend back for days. You wasted the little free time you had after school. You shooed your brother out of your room, claiming you were doing homework. You missed the beginning of spring, didn’t look at the flowers and the trees and the sky enough. You felt worse and worse, and yet you couldn’t stop. The world passed you by, and it tore you apart.
But you kept scrolling.
You just couldn’t stop.