As I entered the elevator heading down, there were people in there already. This usually isn’t the case since I work on a higher floor.
It was a father and his child. The girl was somewhere in the range of 8 to 12-ish years old. And was saying this repeatedly after the doors had shut and I had joined their ride down:
I want a screen I want a screen! I want to look at a screen dad! Why isn’t there a tv screen in this elevator dad?! I want to look at a screen!
She had to be comforted by her dad the elevator ride would not be as long as she was thinking it was going to be.
But the mere seconds of being in an elevator ushered her into a realm of boredom her attention apparently rarely engages in.
Screen free time. No windows.
Nothing to observe other than the interior of an elevator, her father, and some random stranger dude that just entered the elevator.
But it was the way she said repeatedly in a rapid fire succession her need to stare at a tv screen right then and there which was the more alarming part and stuck with me. The impression I got was that of someone suffering through solitude deprivation as Cal Newport calls it. She didn’t now how to be in a momentary state of solitude, even with her father present.
A screen, now, or else I’ll elevate this to tantrum levels.
Thankfully there was no tantrum, thankfully only one more stop on the way down occurred and gave her a momentary pause in her ever increasing boredom.
But what is going on with our younger screen raised generation? I hope this little girl is not a canary in the coal mine, yet I am afraid she may be, of course at differing degrees on the scale of distraction and screen addiction.
Not knowing how to be properly bored even in the presence of a loved one, for a ride down an elevator for less than 30 seconds, means not only does this little girl need to train herself more in the realm of solitude deprivation, but my guess is her and millions of others like her suffering from momentary screen withdrawal.
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