The Radical Act of Wasting Time

Walk into a college classroom a few minutes before class begins and you’ll quickly notice a common scene. Students slip into their seats, backpacks land with a thud, phones appear in hands, laptops flip open—and eyes drop almost immediately to glowing screens. A few final messages are sent. A quick scroll through social media. Maybe a game opened and closed before the professor arrives. It’s quiet, efficient, self-contained.

Not that long ago, that same pre-class window often sounded different. Students talked. They compared notes about the reading, complained about the weather, laughed about something that happened in the hallway, or simply filled the air with small, unremarkable conversation until class officially began. Those moments weren’t profound, and they weren’t always meaningful—but they were connective. They acknowledged the presence of the person sitting two feet away.

This isn’t an argument that one era was morally superior to the other. Phones have made classrooms more accessible, more flexible, and in many ways more inclusive. But something subtle has shifted. Those few unstructured minutes—once a natural invitation to interaction—are now easily absorbed by convenience. And in that shift, we may be losing small but formative opportunities to practice a skill we increasingly struggle with: the patience and humility required to engage another human being, right here, right now.

In an era defined by convenience, novelty, and speed, our habits reveal much about who we are—and who we risk becoming. Consistently, we choose what makes life easier, often at the expense of patience, skill, and meaningful connection. If you ever had the privilege of taking a class with Dr. Charles Veenstra, professor emeritus at Dordt University, you probably heard him say something along the lines of how seemingly innocuous conveniences can erode everyday opportunities to build relationships. One common example was the humble dishwasher: a machine that frees up tons of time but also quietly removes a context for shared work and conversation. When burdens are lifted without intention, the relational spaces they once created can be lost without notice. He and others might paraphrase this idea into how often the best communication is not necessarily the most efficient communication, especially in our interpersonal connections. In other words, this so-called wasted time actually is some of the most important time.

This tension between ease and depth shows up in our communication culture as well. For example, maybe you’ve heard friends tell you they’re nostalgic for the ritual of sitting down with a morning coffee while reading the paper. When asked why they no longer do so, they often respond, “Who has time for that anymore?” The sentiment reflects a broader shift. We’ve traded slower, reflective habits for doomscrolling headlines on our phones between meetings, responding instantly to pings and alerts, and collapsing what once were intentional practices into brief digital fragments. In this transition, we’ve gained efficiency—but often at the cost of presence and patience.

But this isn’t just about our phones or coffee routines or household chores. It extends into how we interact with one another, particularly across differences. Our conversations increasingly happen in fast, convenience-driven spaces—text threads, social feeds, voice memos—and often with audiences ready to react rather than listen. In this context, the humility required for genuine dialogue across differences becomes rare.

What would it look like to reclaim humble, patient, and thoughtful communication skills? What might be gained if we reconsidered convenience not as an unqualified good, but as a choice that can sometimes cost us the very connections we seek? In one of my classes, we spend two or three days on the topic of “small talk,” and despite how odd that might sound, students have responded favorably to building skills in the art of just talking, which reinforces “obvious” techniques like using eye contact, saying the other’s name aloud, and asking questions. In fact, Dr. Mark Knapp, a leading expert on building relationships, says that the importance of small talk is so important in relationship-building it ought to be relabeled as “big talk.”

But it’s not easy to find time or energy to build such a skill. Convenience promises more—more done, in less time—but it rarely promises depth. Email, messaging apps, and social platforms make it possible to connect with dozens of people at once, but these tools also encourage rushed responses, curating over authenticity, and dividing attention. We mistake speed for closeness and compression for insight.

Studies of mediated communication suggest that instant responses and minimal cues (like emojis and shorthand) reduce the emotional richness of conversation compared to face-to-face or extended written exchanges. Digital communication is inherently transactional by design and often is short, fast, and efficient. But good communication often requires space, careful consideration, and, crucially, listening. Patience becomes an underrated skill in a world where attention spans are continually challenged by distraction.

The habits we cultivate shape not just how we express ourselves, but how we receive others. When we are always on the way to something else, when the next thing on our device demands our attention, it becomes harder to be fully present. Reclaiming patient, humble communication means resisting that urge to respond immediately, to interrupt, to assume we already know.

Humility in communication involves acknowledging that our own perspective is limited, and that we may have something to learn from others—even (or especially) when we disagree. One of several studies in this area is an article just last year by Stroud and Murray out of Oxford. Their research on “intellectual humility” finds that people who acknowledge the limits of their own knowledge are better at listening, less likely to polarize conversations, and more open to collaboration. In digital discourse, where certainty is often worn as a badge of confidence, intellectual humility becomes a countercultural skill—one that encourages curiosity instead of defensiveness and connection instead of dismissal.

To practice humility in conversation is to slow down, ask questions, and resist the urge to dominate a discussion with our own point of view. It is to choose presence over performance, to prioritize understanding over persuasion. This doesn’t mean abandoning conviction—but it does mean holding our beliefs with openness to refinement.

Just as people once savored a slow morning coffee with the newspaper, there were rhythms in communication that reinforced patience and reflection. These rituals, small as they may seem (and easy to dismiss as inefficient), grounded us in presence. Writing a thoughtful letter, sitting down for long philosophical discussions, lingering over dinner without screens – they required us to pay attention without the convenience of instantaneous feedback or multitasking distractions.

Reclaiming these skills doesn’t mean rejecting modern technology. It means choosing intentionally when to slow down, when to listen, when to prioritize depth over efficiency. It means setting aside focused time for conversations without interruptions and resisting the impulse to check our devices mid-dialogue.

The shift away from patient communication isn’t limited to digital habits. We see echoes across many aspects of modern design. For instance, many car companies are now reversing a decade-long trend toward touchscreen-dominated dashboards, reintroducing physical buttons and knobs for key vehicle functions such as climate control, volume, and hazard lights. Manufacturers such as Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, and others have responded to consumer frustration over touchscreen interfaces by adding tactile controls back into their designs—a move that highlights how tangible interaction can support usability, safety, and intuitive experience.

The touchscreen trend once promised sleek, futuristic interiors—but in practice, navigating layered software menus while driving proved distracting. Physical buttons, in contrast, allow drivers to keep their eyes on the road and rely on muscle memory rather than visual attention—a small but meaningful shift that places usability before minimalism.

This trend reflects a deeper insight, that how we interact matters. When functions are buried behind touchscreens, we lose tactile feedback and the effortless, embodied actions that make systems intuitive. Similarly, when communication is mediated through shortcuts and immediate digital responses, we often lose the embodied practices of listening, reflection, and presence.

The convenience revolution has delivered incredible benefits. It has democratized communication, connected people across distances, and compressed the time it takes to share information. Yet it has also fostered impulsivity, shallow engagement, and a fragmented attention economy. If we hope to converse across differences—political, cultural, interpersonal—we must cultivate skills that are inherently slow, such as patience, curiosity, humility, and attentive listening.

Imagine a world where people approached conversation like they once approached a morning coffee, with relish, willing to linger, ready to engage thoughtfully. Imagine discussions not as debates to be won, but as opportunities to understand, refine, and build together. These are skills that cannot be automated, condensed, or optimized away.

Reclaiming forgotten skills is not a nostalgic longing for a time that never existed in perfection. It is a commitment to practices that resist the pressure of convenience when it dulls our capacity for meaningful interaction. In doing so, we rediscover resourcefulness, we cultivate wonder, and we open space for genuine connection.