Living Through a Phone Screen

     We have talked a lot about what is unique and original vs remakes and copies. We have also talked about how a lot of people live through a phone screen. Some people mentioned it in their show and tells, and I thought it was an interesting point. Many of our teachers and other adults tell us that we were born with a phone in our hands. We grew up with the internet and technology.
     Just the other day, I was with the professor I am doing research with and we ran into another one of my professors when we were trying to get into a lab. We asked him if he knew the code, and he said, "No, but I have the key. I am incapable of learning the code since I have the key. Kind of like how you are incapable of learning logarithms". Then he tried to test me, asking what the log of 2 is, which is one I actually know. A grad student had walked up at this point and told a story of when a girl next to him asked their professor for a calculator and he handed her a slide ruler. Back in high school, I was also doing research with a professor, and he told me I didn't know how to do algebra. If you think about it, that is partly true. As students, we rely so heavily on our calculators that we actually don't know how to do the math. We just know how to make our calculators do it.
 (I got a little side tracked but it was interesting to think about...back to my point...)
     We often see pictures on the internet of events where all the younger people are on their phones trying to capture the moment, while older generations are actually watching the event and taking it in. Someone said something in class about when we take a picture with our phone instead of just looking, we don't remember it as well or as incredible as it might be. Another thing people do is take Snapchats of big life events happening. I saw one of someone proposing to his girlfriend, and instead of it being something intimate, he was on his phone taking pictures of her. Of course everyone wants pictures of when they get proposed to, but they shouldn't be the ones taking the pictures.
     In China, there was a proverb we heard that said, "A split second becomes an eternity". To me, this seemed to be talking about a mental picture where you stop, taking a breath, and absorb what you're seeing. Not necessarily taking a picture that may or may not be mysterious deleted. So it is better to mentally take in your surroundings than to not look and just try to get a picture because you think that has a better chance of lasting than your memory.