The Take: iPhones reduce our beautiful campus to a prop

The Quad is one of the most gorgeous attractions the UW campus has to offer, bringing together thousands of people from all corners of the globe. But springtime brings another group of people flocking toward the pastel pink perfection in the center of the liberal arts quadrangle: tourists. When the flowers bloom, in comes a wave of people who don’t call the Quad home, but rather a vacation destination. It is wonderful that families and friends can come together to view the fleeting attraction. For many, this is the first time they’ve ever seen the cherry blossoms, including for parents of freshmen. For more, this is the first time they’ve seen small white flowers on trees ever, as they plod along in their toddler steps through the campus grass. It’s no wonder there’s so many of them. It is frankly beautiful, and I’ll be saddened when the cherry blossoms are gone. But something is unmistakably amiss with the Quad’s festivities; something about it all is deeply uncomfortable. The tourists here are often not even looking at the trees, nor the people, nor the frisbee throwers and the artists. They’re not soaking in the sun or playing with their children or dogs. They’re viewing it all through a screen and a camera. They’re not truly experiencing the magic of the campus. Instead, they’re adding pictures of themselves to what is becoming scarily similar to a card collection. I have yet to see a single person who has not been, in some way, inseparable from their technology, and tangentially, their self-image. These extraordinary moments are reduced ultimately to the same value as every other mundane picture they’ve ever taken. They’re stowed away in the depths of huge albums, only occasionally dusted off to show to their friends. And in that sense, what’s the point? If you spent the whole time focused solely on that screen, is there even a memory in the first place? Call it idealism, but there’s some things in life better left untouched by our addiction to our digital worlds. If you’re going to be a tourist here, sometimes it’s best to just hold hands with people and walk through these parts of the world, living in the moment, invoking happiness that can scarcely be matched. Being glued to technology in the midst of this natural beauty can make you a tourist in your own life. My take: Please take my advice and put the phones away. Life is much like the cherry blossoms here: blink and you’ll miss it. Reach writer Zackary Bonser at opinion@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @ZackaryBonser

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