You’re mid-sentence. You’re telling someone about your day, something that happened, something that matters to you – and they glance down. Just for a second. Their thumb swipes. Their eyes leave yours.
And you stop talking. Not because you’ve finished. Because you’ve been dismissed.
You know the moment. We all do. You might be on the receiving end of it. You might be the one doing it. Probably both, if you’re honest.
The invisible exit
I’ve watched it happen so many times now that I’ve started to see it differently. It’s not rudeness, not really. It’s something worse. It’s involuntary. The person sitting opposite you hasn’t chosen to ignore you. They’ve been pulled away by something they can’t resist – and most of the time, they don’t even realise they’ve gone.
I see it with friends. I see it in groups. I see it in my own family. I see it in one-to-one conversations where the other person physically cannot leave their phone face down on the table. Can’t put it in another room. Can’t let it sit in a pocket for an hour without checking it.
It’s painful to watch, because I understand how it works.
This is by design
None of this is accidental. Every app on that phone has been built by people whose entire job is to keep you scrolling. The pull-to-refresh gesture? That’s a slot machine. The little red notification badge? That’s a trigger, engineered to create a tiny spike of anxiety until you tap it. The infinite scroll? That’s the removal of a natural stopping point – because if there’s no end, there’s no reason to put it down.
These aren’t features. They’re hooks.
The dopamine hit you get from a new like, a new comment, a new message – it’s real. It’s neurochemical. And it works the same way as any other addiction: the more you feed it, the more you need. The less satisfying each hit becomes, so you check more often, scroll further, stay longer.
The people who designed these systems know exactly what they’re doing. Former engineers from the big platforms have said as much, publicly, repeatedly.
Some of the biggest names in tech – the people who built these systems – don’t let their own children use them.
Think about that for a moment.
They built machines that exploit the way human brains are wired, handed them to billions of people, called it connection – and then went home and kept their own families away from it.
If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, nothing will.
The difference between busy and absent
I’ll hold my hands up – I’m a workaholic. I’ll happily lose hours writing, reading, watching something, working on a project. I’m addicted to doing stuff, no question.
But here’s what I’ve noticed about my own version of that addiction: when someone walks into the room, I stop. I look up. I give them my attention. Not because I’m disciplined or virtuous (I’m far from both) – it’s just what feels natural.
There’s a person here.
Probably someone I love!
They matter more than whatever’s on my screen.
That’s the difference. Being busy isn’t the same as being absent. You can be deep in something and still be reachable, still be present, still be human when another human needs you.
A phone addiction doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t pause when someone enters the room. It competes with them. And it usually wins.
What I actually miss
This isn’t a rant about technology. I work with technology every day. I think it’s brilliant, powerful, useful.
What I miss is people.
I miss who my friends and family were – and who they’d be – without a phone in their hands, controlling their attention. I miss conversations that don’t have a third party in them. I miss eye contact that lasts longer than the gap between notifications.
I miss being with someone who’s actually with me.
And the hardest part? They don’t know they’ve gone. They think they’re still there, still listening, still present. They’d be genuinely surprised if you told them how often they disappear. Because the phone doesn’t feel like leaving. It feels like nothing. It feels normal.
That’s the real trick of it. It’s made absence feel normal.
So what now?
I’m not going to give you a list of tips. I’m not going to tell you to set a screen time limit or buy an alarm clock so your phone doesn’t need to be by the bed – I have mine by the bed and listen to something from it to fall asleep. You know all that stuff already.
I’m just asking you to notice.
There’s a mountain of research out there that fills in the gaps that I’ve left when writing this and I’m not here to regurgitate that.
Next time you’re with someone – a friend, a partner, your kids, anyone – notice how many times you reach for your phone. Not to judge yourself. Just to see it. Count them if you like. See how it feels to resist. See how long you can last.
And if you can’t last? If the pull is too strong, the urge too automatic?
That’s addiction. And it’s worth knowing the difference.
The person sitting opposite you – they’re right there.
They won’t be forever.
And they deserve the version of you that looks up, looks them in the eyes, smiles… the version of you that shows them they matter more to you than sodding Facebook or Twitter / X whatever the shit is called and more important than some rage-bait click-bait content-farm trash put there purely to get your attention.
And if you know me, and you’re wondering why I wrote this (and many other things about social media etc), it’s because I miss you.