I taught my memoir class for Avocet this week. Although I’ve been meeting with this same fourteen people weekly for four years, most of our classes are on ZOOM. I hadn’t seen them IRL for at least four months. I also have a few new students, one of them who is 98, who I had never met in the flesh. Full disclosure, it took me a minute to adjust. It was as if I’d been watching “The Golden Girls,” in my office and suddenly I was sitting at a table with Beatrice Arthur, Estelle Getty and Betty White!
Gratefully, almost all of Laughter On Call’s senior services are being run in person again - markedly more effective. Being with my memoir group I was reminded why. There’s something about inhabiting the same space, sitting next to people, breathing the same air, seeing hands fly across the table negotiating who gets which piece of chocolate covered matzoh that you don’t get virtually. It was all so tactile and…real.
We all agreed that we might not have survived COVID without ZOOM, and that it has given us opportunities to be at celebrations and yes, funerals, we wouldn’t have been able to witness without a virtual option. Nevertheless, being together listening to each other's stories, talking about them and laughing together was a much richer experience. Turns out we weren’t just being sentimental. Thanks to my friend Professor Alison Wood Brooks, who I just had the pleasure of talking to in this month's webinar about her new book TALK, studies prove that people are thirty times more likely to laugh when they are in person!
And not looking at devices.
My class isn’t a big iphone crowd, for the ones who have them it’s been for a relatively short part of their long lives. They are definitely in the minority on this. Which is really not good news. Apparently, people who are on smartphones more than 3.5 hours a day have higher rates of depression and anxiety. Even when you’re not looking at it, the phone can be face down on the table and it’s still distracting. Gah! Say it isn’t so! The phone can pull our attention when it's in another room. In a drawer. Being out of sight, doesn’t mean out of mind. We can’t be distracted wondering how, or if, someone responded to a text. The result of living this way is that we are missing so much. Not just the sensorial experience of other humans, but genuine listening where we learn about each other right here right now.
In light of the experience with my class, I’m going to try to enact some personal “phone hygiene” - and I don’t mean the kind that needs a sanitizer. In light of this, here’s what the experts recommend:
1. Designate specific areas or times as tech-free. (Meals are a good start.)
2. Set screen time goals. (Even if you don’t meet them, awareness is the first step!)
3. Limit phone use before bed. (What no Insta shopping??!!)
4. Here’s a novel one: USE AN ALARM CLOCK NOT YOUR PHONE.
5. And my personal favorite: ASK PEOPLE TO MEET YOU IN PERSON.
Would love to hear any other ideas from you! Or just check in and let me know how you’re doing with this goal. We’ll form a group chat, text each other and then feel successful when we all meet in person!
