Anderson

I have a younger brother in college who came home last weekend. As we were catching up over a few beers after dinner, I happened to ask him whether his grades had improved. He had the prior year struggled with passing the natural sciences.

“But you know what I do know, brother?” he said, having shaken his head as to my follow-up question whether his friends weren’t a material distraction from his studies.

“What, Marco?” I said, Marco being his name.

“That studying would be infinitely easier without this cursed thing—” and here he took his smartphone out of his back pocket to set it on the table somewhat roughly.

“This thing, the apps, social media, the algorithm, it’s all cooked. It’s bane to academic success, we all know it.”

Though he didn’t quite answer my question, I also did not disagree with him. I know that I have lost days of my youth mindlessly scrolling through nonsense. I nodded in assent.

“—and I even had a dream about it,” he added.

“A dream? About smartphones?”

“About how pernicious they are to our attention span. — And if we consider that the same companies are investing in, and trying to integrate with artificial intelligence, think about where we’ll be in ten years. Think about where the children will be. It’s frightening.”

I wasn’t struck by his mentioning children, since he has been involved with an organization on campus that provides tutoring in reading and writing to middle-schoolers. “How about the parental controls these companies tout?” I asked.

“Both of us know parents effectively and proactively using them are the minority.” I nodded again in assent: Teenagers have historically been largely left up to their own devices (no pun intended) with social media.

“So how was the dream?” I asked chuckling, amused but also intrigued. Marco finished his beer in a gulp and he began:

“A hot, humid summer afternoon in the year 2035.

“I’m alternating glances between the house that I was parked in front of and my cellphone, in order to verify it was the correct place. It’s East Texas. — Don’t ask me why; I just went there once with Micha (that’s his girlfriend). I then exited my Hyundai to go in.”

“Hyundai?” I interrupted, much perplexed at the vehicle model he dreamt. None of us drive or have ever driven a Hyundai.

“Yes! Don’t ask me why. I don’t know why but I’m pretty sure I was driving a Hyundai.”

Shutting up, I let him continue.

“So I swing over my neck my satchel with a legal pad and a laptop. This place is a decently-sized home, with a front yard in some need of weeding and a roof in some need of replacement.

“As I knock on the door, I can’t help wondering how the Cicadas buzzing overhead can be so loud while remaining perfectly hidden in the oak trees. ‘Mr Ferra, come in!’ says a woman cheerfully through the screen door after squinting at me from inside a half-second.

“‘Hi, Ms Lunes, how are you?’ I respond with apparently much satisfaction.

“Nodding and smiling in tandem, she motions me inside and towards the dining table, which seems to double as a work station, there being a handful of books and notebooks on the end opposite to where I go to sit.

“‘Let me go get Anderson,’ she says, hastening up the stairwell beyond the foyer, her flip-flops slapping against the wood floors, her long silver curls springing over her shoulders.

“I set my satchel carefully on the wood dining table, loosen my navy-blue tie, and take a look round.

“You can tell indeed that a grandmother is raising her two grandsons there. There’s a soccer ball waxing threadbare by the front door; an overturned video game controller on the sofa in the living room across; a wicker basket brimming with toy cars on one of the window sills.

“So I’m musing when a teenager, thin and long-haired, slinks downstairs and slips into the seat in front of me. He diverts his sight only as needed from the smartphone in his right hand.

“‘This is Mr Ferra, Andy, okay? He’s only here to help,’ says Ms Lunes as she follows close behind, and turning to me, adds: ‘Coffee, water or tea?’

“‘Water’s just fine, thank you,’ I reply.

“‘Are you sure? I just bought a batch of Columbian Medium Roast this morning, and I have more Earl Grey than I know what to do with.’

“‘It’s okay. I had a cup of coffee before—’

“‘I’ll make you another cup anyway, okay, dear, and if you don’t want it, feel free to just leave it there. I’ll get you a glass of water as well. Ice or no ice?’

“‘Iced. Thank you!’ I say lightly chuckling, amused by her high levels of energy. Ms Lunes belongs to that breed of human beings who, in the service of hospitality, cannot stay seated for long nor settles for a simple no.

“Having gone to the kitchen, she provides me an opportunity to introduce myself to the young person sitting with me. I also appear to be dressed in chinos and have on an impeccably ironed Oxford button-down.”

“Interesting,” I interjected.

“But not odd. I do like to press my shirts for work or special events.”

“I didn’t say odd, brother. I know you do. But go on.”

“Okay. So I tell this teenager: ‘Marco Ferra’s my name. You can call me Mr Ferra, as your grandmother said, or Mr Marco is fine too.’

“The glasses clink and the kettle hisses in the background. The kitchen, in the manner of an open concept, lies next to the dining room. ‘Do you go by Andy or Anderson?’ I then ask him.

“‘Either’s fine,’ the teenager says, without raising his eyes from the device.

“‘Okay, then, Anderson I’ll call you, because I like how that sounds. So yes, Anderson, as your grandmother said, I’m here to help. Do you know with what?’

“The teenager does not speak, responding only with a faint shrug.

“‘My job, my nine-to-five, what I do from Monday to Friday, and have done for the past five years, is I help people, young people, with… And I’ll be frank and straightforward with you, Anderson… I help young people with quitting their addiction. And the addiction I specialize in is that which concerns smartphones. Am I making sense so far?’

“The teenager did not do or say anything in reply.

“‘Look, I know you may not see anything wrong in these things, and maybe on their own, they’re just small rectangular things, made of metal and plastic, and nothing more, just like a microwave or an electric toothbrush.’

“‘But once this thing, once our using this thing begins to affect the quality of our life, once getting on this — look, here’s my own cellphone — begins to make us feel crummy or sad, or we can’t feel happy without it in our hands, once this thing hurts the relationships we have with our family, our teachers, our friends — or our siblings, like that you have with your brother — then it is a problem…’

“‘Then there is something wrong which we have to address — so that we can live happier, healthier lives. And that’s why I’m here, Anderson, to help you address this. So let me ask you: Does the device, the one you have in your hand, determine how happy or how sad you feel on any given day? Is this thing maybe scary or surprising in how much power it has over us?’”

“The glasses are set on the counter, and the kettle is removed from the electric plate. Ms Lunes has discreetly paused in order to listen to whatever her grandson should say. But Anderson continues to make no reply, keeping his eyes on his smartphone as he taps or scrolls up on it.

“I then say to him: ‘If you’re thinking there is no problem, Anderson, maybe that is the case. But then why would your grandmother, your teachers — your brother — be concerned? They told me that we haven’t been eating well, that we haven’t been doing our assignments, and your brother let me know that you don’t play with him as you used to. So is there really no problem? But if there is, it’s not the end…’

“I pause here because I see and hear that Anderson begins quietly to sob. Tears are streaming down his cheeks. Having winced and held back at first, his emotions seem such that he soon lets them flow. While tapping or scrolling on his smartphone, he hastily wipes away some tears before covering his eyes with the palm of his available hand.

“‘But if there is a problem, Anderson,’ I continue, furnishing my voice with a sympathetic cadence, ‘it is not the end of the world. It’s not. There is still plenty we can do. And guess what? I’ve come here with a specific plan for you — just for you — to help you defeat this, to help you get over this, okay?’

“Having set down a glass of iced water and a black cup of coffee on the table for me, Ms Lunes stands behind her grandson, gives him a quick kiss on the center of his head, and caresses his shoulder.

“‘So then, Anderson,’ I continue after giving him a few moments to cry a little uninterrupted, ‘could you tell me what app or website keeps you so stuck to it, or which game we can’t stop playing?’

“Anderson shrugs, because, truly, it must be unclear to him which app or website draws his attention the best. — I know, we know, that it’s not one individual feature, but the whole which is engineered to sway us towards endless media consumption. The whole designed to hook onto people’s heads. And the young, with their so plastic, so green, so untutored, so docile brains, have no remedy against it.

“But here I wake up, and so he never tells me. It was six a.m., and I was due for a long run. With that, the dream ended.”

“You were a sort of counselor then, in it?” I asked.

He clarified: “I think so. And right in the middle of a breakthrough with the kid when my alarm went off. The way things are going, with artificial intelligence getting ever better at figuring us out, at what point will people not help but develop serious dependencies to their devices? And how worse would these be if they’re young and have attention deficit disorders or similar behaviorial challenges?

“That’s the kind of world that will surely then see the rise of trained professionals, half mentor, half child psychologist, in school districts, that will specifically fight smartphone addictions.

“I had been musing about these things lately, what with my own struggles with screen time, and how I’ve seen thirteen-year-olds just glued to their devices at the schools I’ve been to. So that’s maybe I had that dream. It’s scary.”