#SmartphoneFree: Focus On The Journey

"Wonder what life was like on a landline, 

Or what life was like before the landline, 

Probably black and white where everybody had time, 

To focus on the journey 'stead of focused on the timeline, 

So... I'm absorbed in my phone screen, 

I look up, up, up and I'm alone, see." 

 Wise words from Leyma on his 2019 single 'ExtraExtra'. 

 That acknowledgement that before smartphones we might just have been all a little bit more focused on things that really mattered. And that admission of how lonely it can feel, even when surrounded by others, in a world full of smartphone users. It certainly rings true for me, and if an 18 year old can see it too, that gives me hope for the future.

Leyma had this to say about these very lines (taken from giggoer.com): 

 "These topics aren’t really vocalised enough. We all “wake up and (I) say nothing”, but I do think that everyone sort of knows what’s happening isn’t healthy. With the line “I wonder what life was like on a landline”, I can only really imagine that everything was different. That mental health among the youth wasn’t as prominent. That you had more time to go do things “instead of focus on the timeline”. I won’t ever know, but it’s mad thinking about how recently that was. I know how comparing yourself to other people can f*** you up, talking first hand. The thing is, that’s just what social media is now- just a bragging platform, where we all take ourselves too seriously, a toxic place to be.

 Being adolescent is difficult enough, without this constant judgement of who you are and what you’re doing. I feel for the people who are 14 right now, dealing with all that stress."