Human beings have always found paths to distraction
- By Wang Yong
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, January 23, 2015
A young colleague told me on Tuesday that he would write an article to criticize phubbers — those who lower their heads and bend their necks to play mobile phones or tablets — often neglecting what happens around them.
"What's your point, then?" I asked. "Are you still going to criticize them if they replace a mobile phone with a book?"
"If they read a book, at least they acquire knowledge, but when they play a mobile phone, they get information only," my colleague quipped back.
"What if they read a book on a mobile phone or a Kindle?" I asked gently, hoping to make him see things more clearly. "And even if one gets only information from a mobile phone, say the place and time of a meeting, can we say that such information is less important than some knowledge a book may impart?"
"Well, that, I would have nothing to say," my colleague gave in. "But my point is, we are getting worse and worse by the generation. About 30 years ago, we had TV in our life for the first time, and TV was much less harmful than mobile phones in terms of distraction."
I said: "Certainly, you cannot bring a TV set around everywhere, the way you carry a mobile phone, but TV distracts our attention from family communication or outdoor sport in no smaller measure than mobile phones do. People tend to blame things in the here and now (like mobile phones) than things of the past (like TV), while actually the two are equally distractive, only in different ways."
Double standards
Ever since "phubber" became a buzzword, I have heard many people attacking the phubbers just because they use a mobile phone or tablet everywhere you see them — no matter what they actually read on the mobile device.
While obsession with a mobile phone or tablet can be dangerous to one's life, reading a book everywhere one goes can be as dangerous.
But strangely, few would find fault with a bookworm who reads while walking, neglecting all that happens around — be it an open pit or heavy traffic.
In fact, in the 1970s when I went to junior middle school, we were taught at school and home to emulate those noble people who unwittingly ran into a utility pole while reading a book.
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