Sun Tzu meets the Heads Down Tribe

Even on a lousy day, you can always look at Saipan’s lagoon and let the colors wash away your cares. It is, you’ll agree, one of the world’s best sights.

But it’s not such a great view if your eyeballs fall apart. Fortunately, the odds of that are pretty slim. But let’s tug on that yarn anyway, since it’s part of a thread that runs through modern times.

A story recently hit world headlines about a guy who stared at his smartphone for so long that one of his eyeballs did, in fact, fall apart. The eyeball suffered from “retinal detachment.”

According to the doctors, our peepers aren’t designed to peer at little screens all day, especially in the dark.

Of course, just about anything out there can hurt you if your number comes up. Ladders, swimming pools, and olive pits are a few random examples. So I’m not picking on phones here, be they smart or anything else.

But smartphones can harbor a captivating quality. After all, you don’t see many people climbing up and down ladders or sucking on olives all day just for the heck of it, but maybe it depends on the company you keep. By contrast, constant engagement with smartphones is so common it’s probably not even noteworthy.

But it used to be. Noteworthy, that is. Last year in this space I took a look at a term that was growing in popularity in Asia: “Heads Down Tribe.” That’s so named, of course, for the slumped noggins of smartphone viewers. Just from anecdotal evidence, I’ll submit that this gig is no mere passing fad, but is, instead, just one data point on an upward trend of downwards heads.

In some cases, the elapsed time from someone being introduced to me to the point at which they pull out a smartphone to show me something is about two minutes, if not less. I guess it makes sense: The smartphone is, among other things, a miniature version of a briefcase, so you can have your entire photo album, product catalog, and so on neatly tucked away in your pocket.

It’s certainly amazing technology. Maybe someday the old-fashioned briefcase will disappear entirely, joining the top hat and spittoon in the relics realm.

But smartphones might not always be the best answer for every situation. For example, last year I was at a gathering of amateur astronomers. Some folks dropped by the event to see if they could have a look-see through the telescopes. A line formed at my scope to see Jupiter and four of its moons, and Jupiter was showing big, bright, and juicy.

Things were moving along nicely until one guy took a look through the eyepiece and declared, “Whoa! I gotta’ see this on the Internet.”

Disregarding the line of people waiting behind him, he pulled out a smartphone and started looking up pictures of Jupiter. Apparently, Jupiter did not exist until an electronic screen validated its presence.

The guy stood there, unyielding, in a hypnotic phone-trance, scrolling through pictures of Jupiter.

And he stood. And he scrolled.

And he stood some more. And he scrolled some more.

Somebody in line prodded him with a polite hint.

He didn’t catch it.

Cazart! Even mighty Jupiter, the Roman god of all the other gods, is no match for the Heads Down Tribe. As you can expect, then, a queue of mere mortals awaiting their turn at the eyepiece didn’t stand a chance.

I sure didn’t want to take any chances. So rather than risk provoking any weirdness, I just covered up the scope and slinked away for coffee. And, come to think of it, for doughnuts, too. After all, there are few problems that can’t be solved by coy retreat and a jelly-filled glazed, so when the going gets tough, you can find me at the intersection of Sun Tzu and Winchell’s.

Speaking of retreat, I’ll step back to fit this big idea on the conceptual horizon: There’s something about the electronic screen that makes it seem more compelling than reality itself.

Perhaps it’s in the presentation. After all, reality itself can be a messy and chaotic affair. But on the other hand, by way of clean contrast, a well-arranged screen seems authoritative by dint of being organized and orderly. Or, uh, something like that. I don’t really know. Your guess is certainly better than mine. But there’s something going on here, that’s for sure.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to go the remainder of the year without having to ponder this subject again. In the meantime, you can always enjoy the green gem of Managaha island amidst the blue hues of Saipan’s lagoon. But after looking at that scene you should consult a smartphone just to, you know, see the real thing.