After school most Fridays, my friends and I text. Our back-and-forth messages go on for 30 minutes or so. We are not texting randomly. There is a point to our messages: we are coordinating Saturday’s meet-up for coffee.
For sure, my friends and I “talk” via social media, but our most meaningful interactions happen in person.
On a Saturday morning, the three of us each drive from our homes to a coffee shop, where, free of the stresses of the school week, we bask in the aroma of coffee and, boosted by caffeine, talk and laugh — face to face — catching up on our lives.
My love for conversation over coffee began back when it started to be an acceptable drink for my age — around 12 years old when I was in sixth grade. I’d order the sweetest caffeinated beverage on the menu, a grande iced white chocolate mocha with vanilla sweet cream cold foam and extra caramel drizzle.As more of my friends also began to take pleasure in a cup of coffee, we started to meet up and compare our favorite orders. This time at our favorite coffee shops made me realize how beneficial in-person communication is. And coffee makes it so much more fun!
Meeting friends at a coffee shop is a much more rewarding experience than simply having a conversation through a screen. When I am sitting across the table from a friend, I see their genuine smile, the enthusiastic nodding of their head, or the furrow of their brow. Seeing and hearing them in person makes a conversation heart-to-heart. Face-to-face relationships play a big role in adolescent development. Unfortunately, over the past several decades, fewer teens have met regularly for face-to-face interactions with friends. Nearly half of teens in the United States say they are online almost all the time according to research from the Pew Institute.
Technology can help us reach out to others, but online connections are often not enough to stop a teen from feeling lonely. Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and an expert on youth mental health and the impact of technology, sees a correlation between the decline of adolescent gatherings and the rise of teenage loneliness. Around 21% of teens reported being lonely much or all of the time according to recent data from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Twenge considers loneliness to be an alarm system, telling you when you need to seek social connection. Even a brief conversation with a stranger can ease loneliness.
My grandmother was a teen back in the mid-1900s, when friends gathered at chrome counters for milkshakes and ice-cream sodas, rock ‘n’ roll playing on juke boxes. For her generation, soda fountains were the social heart of American youth culture, a place where teens could feel independent, connected, and secure.
My grandma’s favorite spot back in those days was F.W. Woolworth Co., in Preston Center, where Hopdoddy stands today.
“Just like y’all going to Starbucks, we would go to Woolworths,” says Grandma.
Coffee shops can be thought of as the modern-day soda fountains. My friends and I are fortunate to have such a selection of nearby coffee shops: Drip Coffee, LDU, Sugar & Sage Bakery, La La Land Kind Café, Merit Coffee, Village Baking Co., Foxtrot, multiple Starbucks, and many more. Away from the coffee shops, my friends and I do spend a lot of time on our phones. But our Saturday meet-ups for coffee have made us realize how good we feel and that a healthy balance of online and offline is possible. In-person interactions are important — coffee can help!
Sarah Skinner is a junior at Highland Park High School. She is on the staff of the Highlander Yearbook, where she is the clubs section editor. Sarah also participates in varsity cheer and varsity track and field.
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