Imagine this: You are among a group of people. The conversation is mediocre. You lose interest. Instead of fighting the urge to stay in the conversation, to be sociable, you pull your phone out of your pocket.

That’s when the shift happens.

Automatically, people start to see the color of your phone more than the color of your eyes. While this could be blamed on the “age of technology” that is overwhelming our society, I refuse to let that act as my excuse. In fact, I never want an excuse to pardon my behavior in a social setting.

There are small steps I’m taking to ensure that people know that my eyes are brown, so that they could only guess on an off chance that my phone case is the color teal. For example, I refrain from using my phone in class unless absolutely necessary. And by absolutely necessary I mean I need to check my grades or text my parents. But usually those things can wait. However, people cannot wait.

People need attention. In order to maintain friendships (and other relationships) we need to be cognizant of how much time we are actively focusing on them. By putting away my phone I am now able to fully focus my attention on the conversation at hand.

When we were little we were told to be respectful. Our teachers asked for our undivided attention. But now if our teacher asks us to put up our phone in class they are met with rolling eyes and an attitude. Suddenly it is seen as a foreign question. Instead of putting people as one of our top priorities, the percentage of our phone battery is ‘more important.’ Reality check: No matter who just updated their Twitter status, no matter who just texted you, nobody is more important than the people in front of you.

So quit staring into the face of your phone and look into the face of a person.