This idea was conceived after a night of drunken (barely felt) revelry, endless retching and semi-conscious manoeuvring that ended with the dreadful loss of a phone. In a post-internet age of connectivity, losing a phone can almost feel like losing a fifth limb; it impairs our functions and balks our ability to go about our daily lives. The convenience of navigation and the accessibility of people barring physical distance are all suddenly beyond our reach. Intuitively, it may seem like losing a phone reduces the immediacy of contact, people are no longer a text or an emoji away, validation no longer streams in through a torrent of notifications on Instagram. Yet, putting aside our phones forces us to rethink our interactions with others. It allows us the reprieve from being ten places at once, and instead, focus on our immediate present. It removes us from the distant bustle of activities, the flurry of a fast-paced life reduced to the immediate present, allowing us to then engage in valuable conversations and draw out meaning from our interactions. As clichéd as it seems, look around and smell the flowers—people, and the world might just surprise you.
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