On a biting, harsh morning last November, I was late for school. In my haste to get to campus on time, I forgot to eat breakfast. Ten minutes into my bike ride down Stadium Road, black spots entered my vision, and I broke out into an icy sweat. Pedaling my bike seemed to take an enormous amount of effort. Then, I realized — low blood sugar and skipping meals was a dangerous combination.
The next thing I remember, I was lying facedown on the sidewalk near UF’s Riker Hall, my bike tires spinning and my bike chain a tangled mess. I picked my cheek up off the freezing cement and saw brown furry boots walking over me. They belonged to a girl with a matching Eskimo-like hoodie who tiptoed daintily around my head. She held a phone close to her face, texting furiously. I wondered if she had confused me for some trash on the street — or if she knew she was stepping on my hair.
As I shakily stood up, I realized what a joke this Facebook generation is.
For people who pride themselves on being connected, linked in, hooked up — whatever — there definitely was a lack of face-to-face communication.
My friend Jackie notices it, too, especially on the bus to and from campus.
She told me there’s an unspoken code of silence among bus riders: You don’t speak to each other, and you definitely don’t make eye contact. She said this generally doesn’t bother her except when a fellow rider piques her interest.
“I saw this girl with really cool shoes, and I wanted to tell her that I liked them,” Jackie told me. “But I thought she would think I was weird, so I pretended not to see her.”
Why does our generation have such an aversion to speaking directly to each other?
The sheer number of “Missed Connections” on Craigslist speaks to this issue: “To girl on Route 20 bus: I should’ve tried to start a conversation with you;” “To blonde at Club Twenty: I didn’t have the man juice to go and talk to you.” Though the latter woman probably was lucky no guy approached her with any “man juice,” it sucks to think my peers turn first to technology instead of to each other.
There’s got to be a solution.
Here’s my take: Put down your cellphones, and look up at the people around you. You may find the love of your life is sitting next to you on the bus, or you may find someone to shoot the breeze with on the Plaza between classes. And if you see someone with his or her head on the pavement, don’t tweet about it — help the person up.
