I think I’m the youngest person writing a Jewel, by a long shot. I’m a freshman at an obscure college near Death Valley. With 25 other students, we spend a lot of time immersed in the desert landscape, studying ancient texts, and engaging in deep conversations. One thing we don’t do is use our phones. That’s given me a lot of time to reflect on social media and its impact. My biggest realization is that it’s becoming harder and harder to stay centered in the present moment. People sit at tables, physically together, but mentally elsewhere, scrolling through their phones, looking at pictures posted hours ago. Social media addicts can’t help but frame each moment they enter with the question, ‘Can I post this?’ Social media has created a legion of temporal nomads—people who are sometimes lost in past tweets, other times fixated on future posts, all trying to preserve a moment they never fully lived.
While social media has certainly amplified the problem, the experience of being out of sync with time affects everyone. This is largely because people spend significantly less time together. Parks are empty, sidewalks are bare, yet lights remain bright in each little house. We lack so many shared moments, so we try to build mutual histories by recounting stories to each other instead of living through them together.
For me, every wrong turn on a hike or hapless misunderstanding becomes material for a story I’ll tell sometime in the future. I can’t focus on the objects in front of me because I’m already trying to eulogize them. It feels like I simply collect anecdotes, and then spend the rest of my time sorting through my musty collection. Let the moments spent alone exist just as they are. Build relationships on experiences, not stories. Stop collecting moments and start living in them.
Eli Lerner is an entering freshman at Deep Springs College and former Pico Union Project Intern.
For Every Jewel There is a Question:
What’s the best time you have ever spent alone?
