Eric Bushman, 4-25-17; Look Up From Your Phone

You can see it in the office, you can see it in your neighborhood and most dangerously you can see it in the streets and sidewalks. All of us walking around with our faces buried into our phones.

I recall surveillance footage from a mall somewhere of a person so engulfed with whatever was on his or her smartphone that person walked directly into an island water fountain, tripped and plunged into the water. That person survived but I am not so sure about the phone.

That was several years ago.

Today, one doesn’t need random surveillance video to pop up on the morning news shows. Just look around. When I witnessed someone walk directly into a park bench in the middle of the Pokemon Go craze, I then figured this is only going to get worse.

My point is simple – look up from your phone every now and then. Maybe you will avoid crashing into the car in front of you while driving. Maybe you will notice the oncoming tree branch while cutting through the park. Or maybe you will recognize you are about to walk into a coworker in the middle of the narrow hallway.

It is just an idea.