I'm Having People Over To Stare At Their Phones Later, If You Want To Come By

A desperate love letter to eye contact, the thing we no longer know how to make.

This article is published in The Revival Room, where we explore everyday health & wellness, and practical ways to feel & live better without making it your whole identity.

I saw a meme the other day that made me laugh out loud. It was funny as hell because it’s true, but it was also sort of a gut punch. Oooff.

Because honestly, when was the last time you had people over and nobody pulled out their phone? Mine was Saturday night, thanks for asking. But the only reason nobody pulled out phones was because there were 4 large dogs causing chaos all over the house. 🐾

The fourth one may or may not have been raiding the pantry because he figured out the treats were in there.

I’ll ask the question again.

When was the last time you had people over and nobody pulled out their phone?

Not “just checking something quick.” Not for capturing the Instagrammable moment of the evening, like I did with the dog pic above. Not even the classic ‘group drift’ where one person looks, then another, and suddenly everyone is silently hunched over glowing rectangles like we’re part of some very low-energy cult.

It’s weird that we don’t even question it anymore. It’s just what humans do now.

We gather. We sit and chat. We snack. And then we collectively disappear into our own individual abyss while physically being in the same room.

And the wild part is, we know it’s weird! It’s why memes like this one exist because we all recognize ourselves in it, and we low-key shame ourselves while STILL doing it! 😆

And our bodies are now filing complaints.

Let’s talk about what’s physically happening to us for a second, because this part is not so funny. We’re legit turning into question marks.

I asked ChatGPT to give me its best shot at creating the human question mark image, and it did not disappoint!

There’s a term floating around now called “text neck,” which sounds fake but is unfortunately very real and they’re even labelling it as a syndrome.

When you tilt your head forward to look at your phone, the weight your neck has to support increases dramatically. Our heads weigh about 10 pounds in a neutral position, but when we tilt it forward, the neck suddenly handles the equivalent of 40 to 60 pounds of pressure. 😐

So basically, every time you’re scrolling, your spine is doing the structural equivalent of holding a small child. We do this for HOURS every day!

Evolution was not prepared for this type of neckery.

But wait, because this doesn’t stop at our necks.

That rounded posture we all sink into? It pulls your shoulders forward, tightens your chest, weakens your upper back, and can even affect your breathing. You literally don’t breathe as deeply when you’re curled over your phone like a human croissant.

Which means less oxygen, more tension, and a body that slowly starts to feel like it’s made of stiff rubber bands instead of functioning joints.

Ask me how I know.

If you’ve been wondering why your neck feels like it belongs to a 97-year-old lighthouse keeper, this might be part of the reason why.

Now layer in the back pain. The lower back takes a hit when we slump, especially on couches where posture goes to die. Add in hours of sitting, minimal movement, and the occasional reach for snacks, and you’ve got a recipe for a body that feels like absolute shite.

Ask me how I know, again. Let’s just say that my Thai massage girl and I are on a first-name basis and she’s making good money off my work-from-home fantasy life.

And then there’s the mental health angle.

Which is its own beautifully tragic situation.

We are consuming more information in a single day than people used to take in over weeks. News, opinions, hot takes, sad stories, inspiring stories, random videos of raccoons captured on doorbell cameras, and at least one unhelpful comparison that makes you question your entire life trajectory.

All while sitting beside actual humans you could be talking to.

Scrolling gives us little hits of dopamine, which is why it’s so hard to stop. Our brains LOVE novelty! We love the possibility that the next swipe might bring something exciting, funny, or meaningful.

My personal favorite lately is Gardening With Jonny, and I apologize in advance because if you start watching him, it’ll go downhill rapidly for you. 😆

But here’s the catch. All this consumption also leaves you weirdly unsatisfied. Like you ate a bag of chips instead of a real meal. You’ve consumed something, but you’re not actually nourished because it’s all empty calories.

And the more we rely on that constant stream, the harder it becomes to sit in silence and stillness. Our attention spans have shrunk to a point where silence feels uncomfortable.

And then….we reach for the phone again like it’s an emotional support device.

Which brings us back to the meme.

“I’m having people over to stare at their phones.” It’s funny because it has become normal. But it’s also kind of sad when you think about it, because we didn’t always do this.

Remember when hanging out with people meant actual interaction?

Games that required movement, laughter that came from shared moments instead of forwarded content, and conversations that weren’t interrupted by a notification every 12 seconds.

We twisted ourselves into knots playing Twister (remember that gem of a game, possibly with alcohol involved?) We argued over board game rules or hung out in backyards playing lawn darts, trying our best not to end up with one lodged in our skull.

And kids ran around terrorizing neighborhoods playing nicky-nicky-nine-door. That’s when you ring doorbells and run, and I have no clue why we called it that when I was a kid. 😆 But nowadays, Door Dashing is just another way to sit still and not do any physical work.

Before cell phones, humans got bored together and then had to figure out what to do next, which is where some of the best moments actually happened.

Now we skip the boredom entirely and go straight to stimulation, which sounds great in theory but ultimately it’s robbing us of our humanity.

I vividly recall my restaurant days before the pandemic. I can’t even count how many times I’d witness entire families out for dinner - two parents and a few kids at a table - and ALL of them plugged into separate devices.

Or couples out on a date night, sitting across from each other, sharing a $250 bottle of wine, with their faces in their phones, not even talking to each other.

It took every ounce of my being not to walk up to those tables and clap their heads together.

We’re all sooooo friggin’ checked out.

And the thing is, nobody’s coming to take our phones away or stage an intervention, so it kind of comes down to US noticing it and deciding to be more present.

Because the connection we keep chasing on our screens is usually sitting right beside us, waiting for eye contact, a dumb joke, or someone brave enough to say, “Okay this is ridiculous, what are we even doing?” and mean it.

Do you think we’ve lost something with all this scrolling, or is this just how connection looks now?

If you had people over tonight and banned phones for one hour, what would you actually do together?

Right now, in this exact moment… how’s your neck feeling? 😆

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