When I moved to Australia in the ‘80s, the sound of g’day was music to my ears.

In New York, where I grew up, you quickly learn to avoid eye contact with strangers. You walk with a purpose, gaze fixed in the distance. Otherwise, you’re likely to become entangled in an unwanted, potentially dangerous encounter. (Don’t get me started on the subway!) But in ‘80s Australia, people were greeting me in stereo. I was naïve enough to think they must have picked me for a foreigner and were going out of the way to be nice. I soon realised it wasn’t special treatment at all. Everyone said g’day. Twenty years or so later, this was still the case. When my brother visited from overseas in the noughties, he was amazed at the number of people I seemed to know. I quickly explained that the g’days serenading us on our daily walks were from strangers. When you’re the only people passing each other on the footpath, it is considered the polite thing to do. Or was.

Now, the quintessential Aussie greeting is becoming a thing of the past. Whether walking at the lake, in a park, in the mall or in my neighbourhood, I find that people coming the opposite way will invariably glance away, or pretend they’re on their phone – anything to avoid eye contact. When did we stop greeting each other? (For the record, I never stopped – I’ll say Hey to anyone. I’ve tried g’day over the years, but it still sounds a bit try-hard with a northern hemisphere accent.)

Is it an attention thing? I don’t have ADHD. Correction: I probably do, but I’m not one of the legions of people clawing for a label to explain all my idiosyncrasies (and, trust me, I have plenty). But I can recognise in clear and compelling ways that my attention span is a mere fraction of what it used to be. Sure, we can say aging and other factors could be at play here. But it is undeniable that modern life in the digital world has made us more comfortable with technology than with each other.

To borrow an American sports analogy, if the introduction of smartphones was the line of scrimmage, social media has played centre for decades while, more recently, COVID-19 ran interference. Scrolling, clicking and swiping are ingrained in our neurodevelopment. The repetitive motions aren’t just habits; they’ve rewired our brains, influencing our attention spans and the way we process information. The pandemic cemented this, keeping us indoors and away from each other, making our ever-available devices virtually impossible to resist.

The irony is that we’re more ‘connected’ than ever yet experiencing loneliness in epidemic proportions. The simple act of saying g’day has become a casualty of our fast-paced lives, signalled by a hurried nod or indifference. At the risk of coming across like a Luddite, this loss is far from trivial. When we stop acknowledging each other, we chip away at the essence of what it means to be human. And we lose an opportunity to reinforce the bonds of community.

So, how do we safeguard this simple act of outreach in the form of a greeting? It starts with intention: Slow down. Look up. Make eye contact.

A genuine smile or simple greeting goes a long way.