“I forgot my phone.” – A Viral Video That Will Make You Think

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This short film, called “I Forgot My Phone,” depicts scenes with one jarring, all too familiar aspect: cell phones, which invariably eclipse the main events in life. And while not portraying anything that we haven’t seen to date, for some reason, this theme has struck a nerve and I believe it is about time that it does.

Directed by Miles Crawford, the video stars Filipina-American Charlene deGuzman, a 29-year-old actress and comedian based in Los Angeles. According to her Tumblr, she “came up with the idea” for a short film after witnessing a virtual flood of cell phones, tweets and FacebookFB -1.03% updates at a performance by her favorite DJ.

“The people in front of me had their phones up in the air the entire time — filming, taking pictures, posting them to Facebook and Instagram, tweeting about how cool this concert was,” she wrote.” (Wall Street Journal)

Processed Foods / Relationships 

Take something natural and transform it into something large-scale, marketable (aka- shinier, longer lasting, cleaner), and efficient. Ecco the basic idea behind processed food. As with anything, the process comes with advantages and disadvantages. Launching an outright crusade against them is perhaps a little exaggerated, but raising awareness of the dangers and drawbacks is simply charitable. The same can be said for our use of social media and social technology.

Social networks and social devices have allowed us to “process” our relationships, be it with ourselves (blogs, status shares), with others (friend count, relationship status), or with our surroundings (location status, pictures of where we are). The raw material is our experience or the event that is inserted into the processor in order to produce a product that is able to reach a larger audience, more efficiently, with a more marketable look (that raw experience is always modified and adjusted).

Is this necessarily a bad thing? No. Are there advantages? Yes. Are there disadvantages? Yes. So, what to do? Eat a balanced diet. Sometimes I get the sensation that many people have forgotten what organic or natural food tastes like, what it looks like, what it’s like to pull an apple off the tree and take a bite. Analogically, many have also forgotten what it is like to simply be together, to enjoy and rediscover what it means to engage in a natural, face-to-face conversation and encounter.

Thinking like an Apostle

For some of the current youth generation, processed relationships are the norm and the more natural forms don’t come naturally. They might hear rants or lectures about the importance of turning the phone off or peeling their eyes off the Facebook screen, but it doesn’t register much with their day to day life. The interesting aspect of this video is that it shows how people’s desperation for being connected, in reality disconnects them. They are left alienated among their closest contacts. They have rejected reality in its 3 dimensions for a 2 dimensions HD color screen. So, after showing the video, ask around to see what they think. Have they ever experience something similar? Are they really satisfied with the quality and type of relationships that they have? Or, like the protagonist, are they looking for something more

Something more to think about:

I wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phones? What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets? What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it? What if we flipped through it several times a day? What if we used it to receive messages from the text? What if we treated it like we couldn’t live without it? What if we gave it to kids as gifts? What if we used it to direct us as we traveled? What if we used it in case of an emergency? What if we upgraded it to get the latest version?”

 (taken from http://www.sunnysidechristianschool.org/cellphone.pdf)

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