Recently I found myself taking a break from social events and withdrawing to the comfort of spending solitude time at my home more and more.
People think that those in media must have an active social calendar attending fancy events every day.
That’s not true.
Firstly, nobody gets invited to everything.
And secondly, there are only so many events one can attend.
As an ambivert, I love being alone as much as I love being with people.
But lately, being with people feels lonelier than being alone.
I have noticed that nowadays, attending an event with a roomful of people looks like this:
Step 1:
Arrive and greet the host, where guests are invited to take lots of photos to post on our socials.
Step 2:
Guests find a comfortable spot to park themselves so they can quickly return to their phones. The event starts, and people look up momentarily while more photos are being taken.
Step 3:
Meal is served. Everyone spends 5 minutes snapping their food with additional lighting and perfect angles. Once that’s done, it’s back to their phones as they eat. Nobody talks uninterrupted for longer than 5 minutes since nobody would leave their phone alone for that long.
Step 4:
The host is making a speech. More photo taking and some people are still on their phones while the host is speaking.
Step 5:
Time to leave. Everyone has added everyone’s WeChat as that’s the current way of exchanging name cards. But since there’s not much conversation, no one knows who they’ve added.
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Dialling from a payphone - when life was more inconvenient but had fewer distractions.
In 2011, sociologist and author Sherry Turkle wrote the book, “Alone Together – Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other.”Her book warned about the dangers of technology and how it’s making us more lonely than connected.“Alone Together” was exactly how I felt attending those events, where everyone is together but there is zero connection.When I tried to converse, I felt like a third party intruding on them and their phone.I might have missed the memo, but when did using our phones in the presence of other humans become socially acceptable?In China, it’s common to attend a business meeting where everyone’s eyes are glued to their phones instead of the speaker.The same goes for social gatherings.When you hear a group of people in complete silence, chances are, everyone is on their phones – alone together.I am certainly no Luddite, not in China where our phone is an extra limb.The flip side to this convenience is that we are so addicted to our devices that it is becoming our drug of choice.We all know the engineering behind our screens that makes us reach for the dopamine hit again and again each time we receive a notification.A study in the US shows that on average, a person checks their phone at least 144 times a day.If technology is meant to connect humans, why are we lonelier than ever?![]()
A landline to simpler times when the sound of a ringing phone invites every caller to listen and be present.
I was at a dinner with my friends and one of them who rarely replies to WeChat messages shared that she needs to do better in maintaining friendships in this digital age.She discloses that she can never keep up with the influx of messages that fight for her attention every day in addition to work emails, parenting responsibilities, and life in general.Her solution? She focuses only on the messages that matter and blocks out the rest, but this has led her to a state of agony, where she now feels like she's beginning to lose her friends.They don’t do well digitally, but when you meet them in person, they are the most present and engaged human you will meet – just like this friend.This is because they aren’t distracted and couldn't care less if their phones are pinging for attention.They are perfectly comfortable with the discomfort of silence in between conversations, which is the biggest reason why people avoid conversations.Meaningful conversations require time, thought, and space.They are a sacred exchange of energy and emotions, binding humanity through our uniquely lived experiences and stories.In our wired world today, we have been trained to doom scroll which has resulted in us having shorter attention spans.Midway into a conversation, when we experience “awkward silences”, our first instinct is to whip out our third party - our phones - to rescue us and fill in the blanks. In doing so, not only are we interrupting the flow, but we are sending a message that the people on our phones who are far away, matter more than the ones right in front of us.![]()
Sharing a sacred uninterrupted conversation with a colleague at Primus Hotel Shanghai Hongqiao's tranquil lobby.I told my friend that since her friendship radiates most in the flesh, it would be a waste for her friends not to experience this rare and beautiful gift from her.She could try meeting her friends in person more often instead.With the growing rise in loneliness and depression, I often wonder if by making a small effort to put our phones aside and make space to listen to the person speaking in front of us, we might notice the subtle cues of someone crying for help.We may not have solutions or answers, but sometimes, a listening ear and our undivided attention are all people need to get through a hard moment and to let them know that they matter.Let's try to ditch our third party to reclaim uninterrupted conversations in our lives. 
