Elsewhere

One day, on my way to class, I enter a packed metro and get on my phone immediately. After a couple of minutes I look up and it’s dead silent. Everyone is glued to their screens. Simply consuming. People shuffled around to leave or enter while looking down in their hands. No words were spoken. You just had to feel someone trying to leave behind you so you could make space.

Even though I felt the urge to return to my phone, I couldn’t. To a certain extent, I am complicit. I build technology. It fascinates me. I kept looking around me because it horrified me.

The same thing happens at the elevators at IE; it feels too intimate to be in the same elevator as someone you don’t know. The rare “hello” or “bye” you receive matters as someone enters your elevator. That acknowledgment of existence feels genuine. Even speaking to a friend while someone’s there with you can feel awkward or taboo.

Building digital services has ultimately become a fight for attention. I’m not sure it’s possible to avoid it. Churn rate, MAU, all these other metrics deeply matter when you’re acquiring customers and growing your business. That fight for attention has almost universally deemed the discomfort of being around a stranger greater than the discomfort of distraction. Being reclusive is the norm as a result of the attention economy. Shortly after that moment on the metro, I bought a Balance Phone.

Many of my most memorable interactions with people have been spontaneous. I went to Barcelona recently and had dinner alone a few hours after arriving. I was sat at the bar directly facing the kitchen. I chose to turn off my phone. Watching the coordination of the cooks and listening to the sizzle of the pans mesmerized me. I ate slowly and savored the meal. A couple was sat directly to my right and two older women sat next to me on the left towards the end. By the time I had finished, one of the ladies to my left turned to me to ask if I was from Madrid. I’ve been living here for two years and apparently it shows in my Spanish. Turns out they were sisters from a small town outside Barcelona. One of them had never been to Madrid, but were going soon. So I gave them my recommendations, which barrios to check out, restaurants, and whatever other details I’ve picked up. They returned the favor for Barcelona. I went to the places they suggested the next day. The food itself was fantastic, but my night was made because they decided to speak to me.