By Rose Blanchard
It was early November 2021. I was a 22-year-old journalism student when I met a young Frenchman who would irrevocably change my life. His name was Phillippe Gouy Piton.
“No social media? How do you survive?” I gasped at him. I couldn’t understand what someone did with all their time if they weren’t continually pouring it into their phones. How did he socialise? How did he make plans? How did he keep up with current affairs?
“I read,” he told me.
Now, to be clear, I also read – but sadly more out of necessity than enjoyment.
New perspective
Phillippe had this fantastic vitality about him. He was a free thinker, a philosophy student (not surprisingly) and open to opinions he didn’t agree with. In fact, more often than not, he was actively looking for someone to disprove his own beliefs about the world.
Our friendship blossomed that November month and the first gift he ever gave me was Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Siddhartha is a story about a young man looking for the meaning of life, whilst exploring religion, love, man’s want of material things and friendship.
Initially I had forced myself to read it out of love of my friend, but with every page I turned I sank deeper and deeper in love with this gentle form of escapism. I felt as though I had been exposed to some level of magic. I was excited, but also peaceful in way that I hadn’t been for quite some time.
Phillippe didn’t spend his time racing around like most of us do, he wasn’t a slave to his screen waiting for a ping or bloop. He wasn’t especially bothered by what other people thought of him either. In the time we spent together, we had an unspoken “no phone” policy, and whilst I often broke it, he would still wait patiently when I did.
He returned to France, leaving me with an entirely new perspective.
In a bid to limit the amount of time I spent on my phone; I took up the now aged old art of reading. From Stephen King to Stephen Fry, I swapped posts for pages and found myself met with quite a strange response.
“You really think you’re the main character, don’t you?” was one comment I was subjected to in the Oxford Arms pub in Camden. My reply was one of confusion, before the young woman who had asked me this question followed up with contempt: “You’re clearly just waiting for someone to come and talk to you.”
I was shocked. I informed the woman, rather sarcastically, that I had indeed been reading for three hours and was three quarters of the way through my book because I was waiting for her to come and harass me. Her friend, having not heard this conversation, spoke to me in kind. “Aww, you’re reading The Shining! It’s so good! I hope you enjoy it.” The young woman then laughably piped up with: “Yes, women supporting women!”.
Reading on the decline
Did reading in public get weird? It was a bizarre exchange but suddenly I noticed that everywhere I took my book, I was the only one. If I had been on my phone no one would have batted an eyelid but to see me holding a bound bunch of papers made me something of a curiosity.
So, I did what people of my generation do when they have a question. I googled it.
Reading has been on a steady decline in the last decade, with rates of young people reading less and less with every passing year. The reading agency conducted a study which found that 46% of young people (aged 16 to 24) don’t read in their free time. They also found that 10% for 16-24-year-olds report feeling lonely ‘often’ or ‘always’
I felt I knew the answer to why this was. It’s difficult to deny the correlation between the feeling of loneliness and the mole hill to mountain climb that modern technology has made. I had an interesting conversation with my local bookstore worker, Connor Cudmore, 26, at House of Books, Muswell Hill Broadway. I asked him what he thought the biggest factor was contributing to the fall in young people reading.
‘I think, it’s a very obvious answer, but I do think that it’s having a phone in our hands, constantly… I was watching people do it, they’re like having a conversation with somebody and they will just start touching their phone, not even doing anything with it or on it… they’ll just turn the screen on and then turn it off again,” he said.
“I think it has significantly affected young people’s attention spans. When I watch young people sometimes, it’s difficult to watch because I am lucky enough that I am actually beyond the age group where I think that has really taken hold because now… it’s kind of sad…. it is an addiction… scrolling endlessly for nothing.”
Phones as constant companions
It is an obvious answer. And it’s something we all see. Even if you aren’t using it, your phone is your constant companion. Mine is sat on the desk with now as I write this.
And it’s not just keeping in contact with friends on the phone. Cudmore says that online games such as Candy Crush, which never end, exist simply because we are addicted to keeping our minds stimulated at all times, which was something I had never really deeply thought about. The phone is the book that young people can’t finish, because it doesn’t end..
We all know that social media is getting to us. The ever-worsening relationship between young people and their screen is something that worries me now more than ever.
I have seen friends develop eating disorders, desperately trying to resemble bodies that have been pushed and pulled by editors in photoshop for the better half of a week. I have watched as people have had every painful thought posted relayed back to them under the sweet, animated heading ‘Memories’. I myself have scrolled though video after video not being able to concentrate for more than a few seconds at time.
Since I started reading, though, the world around me has slowed down. I don’t have this constant feeling of existential crisis all the time, and I appreciate the slower present.
Phillipe gave me a gift I doubt I will ever repay. I called him to tell him I was writing this article, in the hopes that he might educate me on how I should finish it.
He didn’t answer.
I smiled a little to myself, and I wondered what exciting thing he might be up to.
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