It happens at least once a day. I’m walking down the street in Bangkok and some completely unaware Thai person slams headlong into me because they are face down in their mobile phone and in a hurry to get where they are going at the same time. It doesn’t seem to matter if I am moving or standing still. People are so engrossed by whatever it is they see on those tiny little LCD screens that they lose all sense of where they are and what they are doing.

And what are they looking at? Because I’m taller than the average Thai, I have peeped over some shoulders on the Skytrain, elevators and escalators. Mostly they are just distracting themselves with silly games and mindless jabber with friends on one of a dozen apps tailor-made just this purpose. It’s not like they are solving some problem at work or consoling an ailing family member … it is distraction for distraction’s sake for people who are already easily distracted.

Before Smartphones took over our lives, roaming around in the Thai public arena was a wonderland of human interaction and reflection. Step onto the BTS or MRT and witness a cluster of schoolgirls giggling and chatting about the day’s activities or some new K-Pop heartthrob. Or maybe a young couple is holding hands and whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ear. Thai people always seemed to be squeezing every drop out of every minute of life. I was jealous of their ability to live “in the moment”; to be where they are and enjoying it to the fullest.

I accredited such an innate sense of here-and-now to the state of “mindfulness” espoused by the Buddhist religion. The Dali Lama put it best when he said, “If you live in the past you live with regret. If you live in the future you live with anxiety. The only time you are truly alive is right here and right now.” I’m paraphrasing of course, but this describes a state of mind most westerners could only aspire to. And Thai people used to do it so naturally. But not anymore. That’s the story this picture tells. It was taken on a Skytrain platform in Bangkok. Every single person in the picture is buried face-down in their smartphone.

They are standing all together but none of them are mentally there. They are not aware. They are not mindful. Their lives are going on somewhere other than where they are. The Dali Lama would be appalled.

I see entire trainloads of people not even looking at each other, praying to the cellular god. I see families in restaurants barely conversing because they are so involved with their little plastic friends. Nobody is living in the moment.

Are smartphones killing Buddhism? For sure, the rudimentary concept of “being in the moment” has become infinitely more difficult to achieve.

Orlando Barton