"I like to hang out with people who make me forget to look at my phone." -Anonymous

On an intern trip to Houston to network and to see the Astros and Dynamo play, a friend pointed out to the group in WhatsApp that it seemed like everyone was more focused on their phones than the experience with their fellow interns. “We are sitting 20 feet from each other and still on social media. It’s an epidemic,” he remarked. This statement sat well with me. I looked around and he was right. Every time I looked up, everyone seemed to be focused on what was going on outside of the building and across the web. It made me reflect on past observations, and I strongly agreed.

Cell phones have revolutionized the way that we communicate, and that statement is a double-edged sword. Humanity’s infatuation with speed and convenience led to the cell phone’s development, and the hand-held device has made serious impacts on the way we live our lives today. We can reach people from across the globe in a matter of seconds with just a few taps. We can store important information on them (though they should be protected from intruders at all costs). The list of convenient uses goes on and on. Unfortunately, it is an epidemic.

Cell phones have made their way to the dinner tables - places meant to be for family time only. Texting has reached the forefront as the preferred method of communicating over the phone. It’s hard to go anywhere without seeing someone on social media out of “boredom.” Even date night has turned into a hot spot for cell phone usage, a time and place where a relationship should start or grow, not go stagnate. People seem more concerned about what others are doing even if they are in the presence of a large group of people. Even hang outs can be grounded to FaceTime or Skype dates. It’s as if we are more concerned about the web world than we are about reality. It is true that we can get lost in our daily routine, but we can change that.

It’s time to hang up and hang out. The best memories are made free from distractions, in the direct presence of our friends (i.e., face-to-face) because we put everything we have into making them. When we’ve got someone’s full attention, there are no limits to the fun we can have and the information we can share. Social media distorts reality, but reality is in the eye of the beholder. For one day, one week, for however long you want, let’s put away the cell phones and just hang out and have a great time. Go see a game, have a picnic, start a pick-up game of some sort, the list of things to do is endless. We don’t need to know what other people are doing at the time. We don’t need pictures to prove that we had a great time. Heck, we don’t even need cell phones to have a good time. All we need are a good group of friends and good laughs. Yes, we will need cell phones to contact those people, but after the group arrives, hang up and hang out!

We live in a world that is thousands of miles in circumference. Why should we ground that to just mere inches where perceptions abound and not reality? There’s lots to see and lots to do, but first we have to hang up so we can hang out.