Is Your Master In Your Pocket?

As it's erev Yom Kippur, I'm going to share a thought that Rabbi Yissocher Frand, in his annual Teshuva Drasha this year, imparted. (Actually, the inspiring part is at the end. Skip to the bottom if you don't have time for some of my own reflections and ramblings.)

He spoke about smartphones. (Actually a few rabbanim talked about phones this year. It's kind of frightening that this is the issue, addressed during a time of year reserved for heavy duty mussar.)

I can almost see you rolling your eyes right now at the smartphones speech. Seriously.

But, this is why Rabbi Frand rocks. He can get away with talking about whatever he wants, and people listen. He wasn't suggesting that we get rid of our phones or password protect our applications. He simply pointed out that humankind has greatly deteriorated in the past decade or so due (at least in part) to smartphones.

Rabbi Frand cited a NY Times Op-Ed piece written by John Spencer, a Major in the US Army, regarding his tours in Iraq. In 2003 the platoon needed to rely on each other for everything, as the connection they had to the outside world was limited to the occasional airmail letter, package, or infrequent call from home. Cell phones were nonexistent. In 2008, his second tour, they had 24-hour internet access, and when they weren't on patrol they were busy connecting online to everyone but their fellow brothers in combat.

Spencer writes,

The term “band of brothers” has become almost a cliché to describe how the close personal bonds formed between soldiers translate into combat effectiveness. Yet my combat experience in Iraq suggests that the kind of unit cohesion we saw in past wars may be coming undone because of a new type of technological cohesion: social media, and too much connectivity.

Studies show that people check their phones every 6.5 minutes, on average. People become increasingly uncomfortable when their phone is not in their close vicinity. Rabbi Frand asserted that cellphones are damaging the very fabric of society. We're completely distracted, as this thing in our pocket will beep, buzz, or vibrate at any time, and we feel compelled to pay attention to it, sometimes to the detriment of others in our immediate presence. Parents/spouses are only half there. When speaking to someone face to face, it's difficult for us to give them all our attention.

MIT professor and media scholar Sherry Turkle writes in her book, Reclaiming Conversation, that because we're primarily communicating electronically, and we don't talk face to face, we're diminishing our ability for empathy and relationships. Rabbi Frand posited that this means that we're losing what it means to be a Yid -- rachmanim/byshanim/gomlei chasadim.

He brought the example of someone who told him that his teenage daughters don't know what to do with themselves at the Shabbos table, and it is impossible for them to have a conversation that doesn't take place via texting. Is this what we've come to? He contended that this means that we're producing a generation that cannot communicate effectively and cannot then have effective relationships.

My question then, is this (just) the life of Post-Millennials (also known as the iGeneration), or are we, Millennials, doomed as well? Can we communicate without our phones? Can we build healthy relationships? Are we so distracted by the master in our pocket?

"Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries, yet it itself is the greatest of our miseries." (Blaise Pascal)  

Interestingly, Rabbi Frand shared, we learn the halachos of blowing shofar from Yovel. Why do we learn the halachos about something we do yearly from something we do only once every 50 years? This is because shofar represents freedom. Just as all slaves go free during Yovel, so, too, the shofar we blow at the end of Yom Kippur represents us unshackling our bonds that tether us to the Yetzer Hara. Yes, we can be bnei chorin, and we can control the master in our pocket (and all the other little guys sitting on our left shoulder). 

Gmar Chasima Tova!