Cell Phones, Social Etiquette and A Lack of Hospitality

Updated 2/27/12

I’m not that old… yet I can remember a time when, while walking across campus, the only thing you could look at were the other people you were passing by.

Your eyes would connect at some distance… and then you’d have a matter of seconds to figure out how you would greet this person that was walking directly towards you.

You had to engage…

Or create a fairly awkward moment.

But there was no avoiding it.

Now… that’s not the case.

Now, we’ve got screens.

We’re “connected.”

And it’s causing us to be disconnected at all the wrong times.

Natural interactions are being missed out on… because we can’t wait to check our email, update our Facebook status, tweet what we just overheard, or make that oh-so-important phone call that just can’t wait until we’re back to our room… or office.

Yes, this is a problem for our students, but I think those of us who serve college students can be just as guilty of being inhospitable while walking across campus… because we’re staring down at a screen.

I know I’m guilty.

We tell ourselves that we’re multi-tasking.

We’re saving time.

We’re being productive.

But… we’re missing out.

If there’s anyone… anyone at all… who is supposed to be “present” on campus, it’s us.

Our students need us to be engaged with them… and to engage them… in person.

We are supposed to be those examples that show a different way of living — something a bit more sane, peaceful, human — even Christlike.

But that’s hard to do if we’re meandering through campus with our heads down and our minds somewhere else.

So I want to put forth a challenge — to you, any students who might read this, and to myself — let’s reclaim our walks across campus as a time for face-to-face relational engagement.

Let’s try to be present to those all around us.

Let’s look for opportunities to make human contact — eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, hug to hug… something much more human than screen to screen.

Often, the calls, emails, and social networking stuff can wait… even just a few minutes, until we get to our destination.

While on campus, let’s try to find a better way.