Gassen: Ignoring what's in front of us

The girl kept glancing from the taco she was tearing apart bite by bite to the woman sitting across the fast-food table.

They sat in silence. The girl, probably 9 or 10, ate slowly, examining each bit of tortilla and meat. She also kept looking at her companion, but remained unseen. The woman, who appeared to be in her mid-60s, was intent on scrolling on her phone.

Swipe up. Swipe up. Swipe up.

Swipe up. Tune out.

The girl watched the woman. The woman watched her screen.

It’s a cliché, tables of people sitting together but not present together. Glued to their devices, life happens around them. Looking at photos of other people’s fabulous meals is more compelling than enjoying your own in real time.

But this pair caught my eye because it was the adult ignoring the child. It seemed like such a lost opportunity to have a conversation, ask about the day, simply acknowledge the girl’s presence.

I don’t know what occurred before, or after, I saw them. Maybe they’d had an engrossing discussion about what happened in the school lunchroom that day, or the girl was being a pill and grandma needed a few minutes.

But the child didn’t even try to engage. There was no conversation, no communication, and the girl, who was paying attention to what was going on at other tables, just watched the top of her companion’s head.

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She appeared used to it.

It’s easy to make grand pronouncements from observing snippets of other people’s lives, but this was something I’ve been noticing more and more — adults ignoring kids in favor of their devices.

At the grocery store recently I saw a toddler almost wander out the door while the adult with him was absorbed in her phone, texting. Another child quickly rounded him up. The woman didn’t even notice.

We’re used to children being engulfed in their phones or video games or whatever, and it’s commonplace for kids to watch videos in the back seat when they’re in the car. Constant external entertainment has overtaken imagination and conversation.

I think back to our marathon summer car trips from St. Louis to Stamford, Connecticut, to see my dad’s parents — driving in a dark brown Ford Fairmont with vinyl seats and no air conditioning.

My parents would likely have appreciated the ability to pop in a video to distract my younger brother and me from arguing about who was on whose side in the back seat.

But we would have missed the games mom brought to keep us busy, the geology lessons dad would give about the kind of rocks we were seeing, playing the billboard alphabet game, keeping track of license plates on other vehicles to see how many states we could find, and simply watching the country go by at a steady 55 mph.

As time goes by, those memories mean more.

And those kinds of memories won’t live in a phone or an app. They won’t be made unless we’re present, together and engaged.