being connected

Do we sometimes forget the importance of being connected to reality, The Earth and just to ourselves?

I often 'forget' my phone when walking so that I can concentrate wholly on being 'in the elements' and being in THE moment without the umbilical cord of digital information. Yes, there can be inconveniences - like when I got stuck on a mountain a couple of years back and had 'forgotten' my phone. But actually it was fine and I met some friendly mountain inhabitants who kindly gave us (me, boy and dogs) pizza and towed us back down, which was probably far more interesting and possibly safer than waiting three hours or so for the insurance company to send out a rescue truck.
I was listening to a talk recently about the over use of phones/tablets, etc. The speaker suggested that we may be in danger of losing the capability and knowledge of how to be on our own - uncomfortable, restless; fingers twitching ready to scroll, jab, text, delete, like, and send visual information to anyone out there ready to receive our description of what we are doing, rather than just actually doing whatever it is and forming memories about it.
A most poignant example of this was a program I heard on Radio 4 where a professional balloonist was talking about the trips he organises and the behaviour of the people sharing the basket with him on each voyage. He said in nearly all cases people are so busy recording, photographing and sharing on social media, The Experience that they are not actually experiencing The Experience. Yes, they will be able to recall that moment on Facebook or Instagram but they won't have the actual, visceral memory in their heads.
It all has a place - social media, phones, computers, and it's all amazingly useful but perhaps not to the extent of forgetting our real connections.

Arrested development

While Mark was walking nine kilometres or so to get to the building in afore-mentioned post, I was clambering around looking at rocks and tiny spring flowers. The 'Cap de Creus' is a volcanic, (or rather was) region, hence the extraordinary rock shapes.
This was the most action-packed rock I had ever seen, well, action-packed a very, very long time ago. I stood for a while thinking about the point, however many thousands of years ago, it had cooled into that shape, the temperature being just right to allow the rock to solidify into that emerging dragon head form, for ever.

I risked my dodgy hip, climbed onto the top of the rock and sat for a long time listening to the wind ruffling the low scrubby bushes and the distant gulls wheeling over the sea. It was one of those moments when I felt so aware of being on the turning Earth and all the usual questions tumbled over themselves in my mind: how does the sea really stay where it is, why is the sky so unutterably blue, etc.
I know I've been told all this stuff in science lessons, or checked it on the internet, but sitting there it all seemed as if it was all such a vast mystery and tears rose in my eyes.
Eventually I stopped being in awe as I realised Mark would be arriving at our meeting point and I was really thirsty having forgotten to take water with me; clambered back down and took a tiny glittering piece of rock to remember the moment.
It's now joined all the other bits of rock that litter the terrace and front room. I generally can recall where most of them come from and the day they were transported in the car back home to remind us of a certain favourite place.