Going to the Store Without the Cellphone: The Experiment That Failed

Today, I decided to do a little experiment when I went to the store. I left my phone in the car and walked in with one simple intention: strike up a conversation with a random person who was or wasn't doom-scrolling while waiting in line for the cashier.

I am sad to say I failed.

I could not find a single person willing to talk. The one person I tried to engage behaved as though she did not speak English. I knew that was not true because moments later, I heard her arguing with the cashier-very fluently-about getting the wrong change back.

Why this experiment, you may ask?

I am not anti-technology. Far from it. Technology has made many things easier and more efficient. But I have long observed that it has also done tremendous damage to our civilization in ways we rarely admit openly. We no longer talk to each other-or perhaps we have completely forgotten how to.

People stand inches apart in stores, trains, restaurants, and waiting rooms, yet everyone exists in a private digital universe. Heads down. Eyes glued to screens. Endless scrolling. We barely notice the human beings around us anymore. If human survival depended on simple face-to-face communication tomorrow, I honestly think many of us would struggle badly. No wonder our elites and corporate over lords are having a field day on how easy we can be manipulated and managed. 

And the scary part is that we all know this is happening.

We joke about screen addiction. We acknowledge it. We complain about it. Yet we do almost nothing about it.

So every now and then, I try to practice what I preach. I try to disconnect a little and reconnect with actual people. But the results are not encouraging. The outlook is very bleak.

The strangest moment came when I instinctively reached for my phone without even thinking about it. Thankfully, it was still in the car. That was when I realized how deeply conditioned we have all become.

Maybe the experiment did not fail after all. Maybe it revealed exactly what I already feared.

What do you think?

For me, I am repeating this experiment the next time I go to the store. If failure is waiting for me, I am ready to fail better. Thank for reading. 

Pal Ronnie