C

ity life nurtures and 
fosters phone addic-
tion. Calling a cab, pin-
pointing yourself on a map, 
and deciding where to grab 
a quick lunch each contrib-
ute to the need to keep your 
smartphone in your hand. 
Living in a big city for three 
months this summer allowed 
me to face this dilemma 
head-on; I attempted to navi-
gate my way through Man-
hattan while keeping my 
eyes on the world around me, 
but it became all too easy to 
quickly respond to one more 
text or email while using my 
phone for seemingly neces-
sary tasks. When using my 
phone to look up the next 
train time, for example, I’d 
feel compelled to read a mes-
sage I’d received. I’d only feel 
this burden, of course, if I 
saw the notification. I felt the 
answer to this was to turn off 
the iMessage notifications on 
my phone. That way, while 
reading an e-book on the 
subway or trying to figure 
out whether I was walking 
east or west, I wouldn’t be 
bombarded by distractions. 
While listening to music, 
reading some news or man-
aging my calendar that I’ve 
programmed my phone to 
control, I wouldn’t acciden-
tally be available to chat.
It worked. I slowly but 
surely began to forget to 
check my phone and started 
to intentionally use it with 
the 
purpose 
of 
contact-
ing somebody: to make a 
phone call, send an email or 
make plans, but never just 
to chat, never to make small 
talk, which would have kept 
my eyes superglued to my 
phone and would’ve robbed 
me of the bustling and col-
orful New York City sur-
roundings. Phantom phone 
vibrations, anxiety-induced 
phone checks and habitually 
full hands faded as I honed 
my ability to resist distrac-
tions. This allowed me to eat 
while walking — a novelty. I 
became able to get lost in the 
work I was meant to be doing 
without hearing a buzz to 
nag me to stop. I became 
aware of the peculiar way 
we’ve adopted into our soci-
ety “the phone vibration,” 
which was initially meant 
to increase the ease with 
which we communicate, but 
instead, has increased the 
difficulty with which we do 
anything else.

I have since moved out of 
New York and planted myself 
in Maine for the rest of the 
summer. Out of the chaos 
and into the serenity, both 
forested and rustic, condu-
cive to physical activity and 
lounging. Someone in a cof-
fee shop on West 26th Street 
once told me that “the sun 
is warmer in Maine.” I’d 
have to agree. Here, I work 
as a counselor at an all-girls 
summer camp that proudly 
and strictly bans cell phone 
use. It’s been this way for 97 
summers, and no one plans 
on changing it anytime soon. 
Living simply and without 
electricity allows campers 
and staff alike to step from a 
hectic world into a space that 
challenges us to learn, con-
nect and make friends with-
out hitting “send.” 
I’ll gladly be the first to say 
— no, the first to shout — that 
being here makes me feel 
healthier. I haven’t charged 
my phone in four days and I 
feel like I’ve been released 
from its maw. In my down-
time, I read or start a conver-
sation with somebody who 
also put their phone away 
for the summer; there isn’t 
even an outlet in my cabin to 
charge my device if I wanted 
to. I feel present, attentive 
and more capable of making 
my own decisions without 
the input of others.
Call me crazy, call me 
archaic, but I’m not the only 
one who feels this way. This 
week, in an effort to bolster 
educational practices, France 
decided 
that 
smartphones 
will be banned in schools 
for students aged three to 
15, with Greece implement-
ing similar policies; the Lon-
don School of Economics 
and Political Science found 
that this ban discernibly 
raises test scores. Scientists 
have been researching other 
aspects of this overwhelm-
ingly invasive technology-
dependent culture, especially 
among 
students. 
Sleep, 
a 
prequel and sequel to hard 
work, is diminished by phone 
use; a Spanish study dis-
cusses the potential of cell 
phone abuse interfering with 
healthy 
sleeping 
patterns, 
resulting in detrimental con-
sequences such as anxiety, 
as well as causing personal 
stress, which leads to a state 
of alertness that results in 

4

Thursday, August 9, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION

420 Maynard St. 
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at 
the University of Michigan since 1890.

A 

summer in China with 
your best friend sounds 
like an absolute dream, 
right? It is, of course, just as long as 
you know the basic guidelines of 
navigating a Buddhist temple. As 
the typical obnoxious Americans 
we are, we made a couple mistakes; 
from talking loudly to taking clan-
destine pictures of Buddha.
My best friend Jocelyn and I 
had decided to travel to Beijing for 
a couple days before the official 
start of our Clean Energy program 
in Xiamen, China. Since we were 
shameless tourists, we absolutely 
had to visit the Forbidden City, the 
Great Wall of China and the Sum-
mer Palace. Honestly, the main 
reason why we chose to go to the 
Summer Palace is because it had 
the most attractive pictures when 
we were searching up historical 
attractions in Beijing. And wow, 
Google did not disappoint — the 
Summer Palace was absolutely 
breathtaking . In hindsight how-
ever, what we really should have 
googled was “proper temple-visit-
ing etiquette.”
The Summer Palace itself could 
be best described as a miniature 
kingdom. When you first walk in 
through the main gates, you quickly 
stumble upon an area that seems 
to be lost in time. The palace was 
crowded with a lot of visitors, as 
well as several services meant for 
the hundreds of daily tourists, but 
even with all the hustle and bustle, 
the palace maintained a sense of 

reverence and beauty that I had 
never experienced before.
After climbing up a regrettable 
number of stairs, we finally arrived 
at the first major temple. At first, I 
couldn’t believe my eyes of the size, 
the brilliant gold and the almost 
godlike quality that the Buddha 
statue effortlessly possessed. The 
statue itself was located in the center 
of the temple, almost as if to say that 
he was too the center of the uni-
verse. Ignorantly, my first reaction 
was to take a photo so that I could 
remember the majesty of the grand 
Buddha that commanded in front of 
me. But before my finger could even 
press down on the camera button, I 
felt a sharp nudge on my side. It was 
Jocelyn, wide-eyed and surprisingly 
silent she pointed at a nearby sign 
that had a huge cross in front of a 
picture of a camera. Whoops.
I didn’t know that you aren’t 
allowed to take pictures of the great 
Buddha, and couldn’t believe that I 
had almost committed blasphemy in 
such a sacred and revered temple. 
We wandered along the lakeside 
for a while before deciding to take a 
dragon-shaped boat to a small island 
that resembled a small mountain in 
the middle of the lake. From within 
the boat, we could see that there 
were easily hundreds of people all 
around the lake who had come to 
pay their visit to Buddha as well 
as the great architectural skills of 
ancient China. It was a truly awe-
some sight to behold, knowing that 
we were celebrating the beauty of 

the same culture alongside each 
other.
Almost hidden on top of that 
miniature mountain, we stumbled 
upon a temple that was strikingly 
distinct from any of the others that 
we had seen so far. The entirety 
of the temple’s walls, both inside 
and out, were covered with tiny yet 
intricate Buddha statues that must 
have been no taller than six inches 
each. Glancing at a nearby sign that 
thankfully had some English writ-
ten on it, we read that the temple 
had more than 700 of these tiny 
Buddhas as decoration.
Regardless of the location, how-
ever, we got distracted and began 
joking loudly with each other. It 
wasn’t until a random lady began 
yelling at us in Chinese that we real-
ized we were being incredibly rude, 
and that we should have acted in a 
more respectful manner to both the 
people and Buddha himself. Cheeks 
burning red from pure embarrass-
ment, Jocelyn and I apologized 
profusely in English and once again 
had to leave the temple area in com-
plete and utter shame.
After that whole ordeal, both Joc-
elyn and I can tell you that the moral 
of this story is pretty clear. When 
traveling to a country with a differ-
ent culture than your own, please 
make sure to research the culture. 
That means religion, too — unless 
you want to face the consequences 
of looking as foolish as I did that day 
in the Summer Palace.

JULIA MONTAG | COLUMN

 EMMA CHANG
Editorial Page Editor
EMMA RICHTER
Managing Editor

Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Elena Hubbell
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram

Jeremy Kaplan
Sarah Khan
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
 Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

ASIF BECHER
Editor in Chief

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

NATALIA MADRIGAL MARTINEZ| WOLVERINES ABROAD

How to not piss off the Buddha

Natalia Madrigal Martinez can be 

reached at nmadriga@umich.edu.

Recharge your mind, not your phone

Continue reading on page 5.

