Hang Up and Laugh

Last weekend my friend and I took our daughters on a short trip to look at colleges. The girls just finished their junior years, their first semi-normal year since they started high school. Summer is here and they are ready to be doing almost anything other than looking at colleges with their mothers.

But the girls rallied and I think we all enjoyed ourselves. On our second night, we all shared one hotel room — the girls in one bed, my friend and I in the other. Once the lights were out and my eyes were closed, I was distracted from sleep by flashing lights from both the girls’ screens less than six feet away from me. I was annoyed by the light but more than that I felt stressed by the fact that they were still on their phones. I wound my way down a familiar stress spiral-- what was the long-term damage that all this screen time was doing, had already done, to their tender seventeen-year-old brains?

After a few minutes of trying to block the light out, I walked over to the girls’ beds and said (with much less irritation than I felt), “Can you girls stop flashing your phones?” I wanted to be nice because, after all, this was their first vacation of summer; I didn’t want to be a buzzkill.

The girls stopped flashing their cameras but continued scrolling through their phones and the light was still distracting. About thirty minutes later my friend asked them to put away their phones. A short while later, on the third attempt from me, they finally shut their phones down. The room got dark and I was able to relax at last.

Just as I was starting to fall asleep, the giggling and whispers started. But the familiar squeaking sounds of their chatting and laughter didn’t bother me as the phone light had. This distraction was different. It was comforting. The girls have known each other since they were toddlers. They have laughed and giggled at sleepovers for over a decade. And here they were again, adult-sized bodies snuggled up in the pullout couch of a hotel room with their mothers close enough to touch.

I was so grateful for the energy that they were sharing. When they put their phones away they were themselves again. They could still be engaged and playful and focused on something else. I breathed a sigh of relief and let myself settle in for the night. I didn’t have to worry about what kind of pollutants would be infiltrating their brains as long as the room was dark. 

Their phones were away for the night and they were back with us. I don’t know how long they stayed up whispering and giggling because I fell asleep.