Greetings from Nomad Fest!
This week, I’m with several hundred other digital nomads in the mountatins of Bulgaria.
I’m here to learn and have fun.
I’m also here to meet new people.
So this morning, when I walked into the theater for the morning talk, I sat down next to a stranger and said, “Hi.”
He looked up from his phone,
“Hi,” he said.
“It looks like they’re running behind schedule,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said, still looking at his phone.
“Maybe I’ll get a coffee while we wait. Have you tried the coffee here?”
“No” he said, still looking at his phone.
I saw I now had three choices:
- Watch him watch his phone
2. Watch my phone
3. Get up and talk to someone else
I got up.
The New Epidemic
Did you know there’s a new epidemic?
It’s an epidemic of lonliness.
That was according to this morning’s speaker.
He said lonliness is as bad for your health as smoking and obesity.
Then he said something I had never heard before.
He said, it’s no longer the old who are the most lonely: it’s the young!
His solution: Community.
He buys properties in Portugal and creates co-living and co-working communities for digital nomads.
Sounds great!
I would also give another piece of advice for any young person who feels lonely: Keep your phone in your pocket.
Great advice.Thanks Ryan.
Hi Ryan !
You right !
Must be try to keep our phone in the pocket.
Cheers
Gabriel
Hi
I’m from a country where we uded to live in community. For long time nuclear family didn’t exist. I knew my grand fathers and mothers, aunts, oncles, etc. who played with us and told us stories (I have 6 sisters and 4 brothers one of whom passed away). When I was young grand parents used to visit us and stayed several months at home mainly when mom was pregnant. Nowadays families are becoming nuclearuzed and people remains confined to their home. Adults go to work and young people at school. When they come back home, everybody is tired and go to bed without discussing.Links becomes more and more fragile and loneliless more and more deep.
Sadly, you’re right.
Hi , I agree.Young people should join comunity and keep phones in pocket👍👍👍
Nice really
According to choice #2 you’ve got a new phone. Congrats!
Hello, There are moments in life when you should put your phone in your pocket, because you may miss something that will pass along with the unstopped moment and to which you will no longer be able to return…
Loneliness may not be typical for all countries. I can’t even imagine that an Indian or a Chinese could be alone at any time. However, it is certain that loneliness is an increasingly common phenomenon in Europe. Unfortunately!
Hi Ryan! Your advice is deaply really! My students are always on phone and the are in difficoult to meet other person. Sorry for my English
Make sense. I agree with your point of view.
Great advice!
I am tempted to disagree a bit. Maybe the person who didn’t react to your attempt at the conversation has had something important to read or write on his cellphone just at the moment.
Or maybe he was a bit farther “on the spectrum” than you. There are people who have very big comfort zone around them which they don’t like to be invaded. They may come to such an event not really to be the part of it, but to look at it a bit from afar, because they miss the ability to connect. Maybe they want at least to look at other people’s lives when they cannot share them. It should be considered. No need to feel insulted or dissapointed.
Hello, your stories are already very interesting here.I like it, however I am only beginner in English..What a pity… It’s my mistake..My foult…I am sorry..
Hi.
If loneliness is the new epidemic and there is vaccine against it, community, then we will survive, Great!
I consider I don’t have to give up on my phone, I feel he is my friend who fulfill a lot of my wishes, I try to be in control not to give too much from my attention in detriment
my communication with friends and other people around me.
Now my phone is with me in my hand,so l can learn English.
My goodness! It seems like in Middle ages – co-living and co-working communities…