Living In the Moment … With a Beer?
I’ve recently written a few posts about the benefits of living in the moment here and here. They’ve tried to articulate the importance of living in the moment, when you’re fully present and aware of the emotions and thoughts that you have at that time. If you’re not living in the moment, then your thoughts are either turned towards the past or fixated on the future.
Of course, it’s human nature to think about the past or future. Looking back helps us understand ourselves, allows us to examine choices we made, and prevents us from making similar mistakes over and over. Looking to the future helps us understand what’s to come, plan our next steps, and prepare for them.
However, when you get caught up in nostalgia and anxiety, your past or future thoughts may prevent you from focusing on the present. When you don’t focus on what’s happening in the “now,” then you’re missing out on what you’re doing, what you’re seeing, and what you’re taking in.
There are lots of distractions that can pull your attention away from the present, like mobile phones.
A classroom experiment at Rutgers University showed that students in a lecture section where mobile phone usage was allowed scored 5% lower on the final exam compared to students in another section where no devices were allowed.
Another study looked at the examined the impact of mobile phone usage on student learning during class and found similar results:
Participants in three different study groups (control, low-distraction, and high-distraction) watched a video lecture, took notes on that lecture, and took two learning assessments after watching the lecture. Students who were not using their mobile phones wrote down 62% more information in their notes, took more detailed notes, were able to recall more detailed information from the lecture, and scored a full letter grade and a half higher on a multiple choice test than those students who were actively using their mobile phones.
Michelob Ultra recently jumped on the opportunity to make the put-down-the-phone-and-enjoy-the-moment mantra front and center of a new advertising campaign that it unveiled this week. And it all stemmed from a viral photograph that someone tweeted during last week’s PGA Championship.
The picture was just a normal guy watching Tiger Woods hit a shot during the tournament. Almost everyone else around him had their phones out to capture the golfer on camera. But the guy in the picture—later identified as Mark Radetic—simply watched one of the greatest athletes of all-time go to work, using both hands to securely hold a can of Michelob Ultra.
Someone tweeted the picture, which quickly went viral, with the following comment: “No cell phone. Just a man watching Tiger with a Michelob Ultra.”
And Michelob Ultra took notice.
The ad execs at Michelob Ultra found Radetic and asked for permission to use his image in the viral picture. In a short advertisement released on social media a few days ago, Michelob Ultra first focuses on Tiger Woods in the picture with the tagline “Some legends play in the moment” appearing on-screen. Then, the advertisement pans across the picture to reveal Radetic with the tagline “Some live in it.” That's beautiful.
Michelob also received permission from Radetic, now known as #TheMichelobGuy, to use his image on a t-shirt and hat with the tag line "It's only worth it if you enjoy it."
In return, Radetic said he received “copious amounts of Ultra.” Hats off to the ad execs at Michelob!
Let’s circle back to bar preparation. You can’t do away with others’ device usage, but you focus on what you can control by creating a distraction-free learning environment.
If you aren’t using your mobile phone for a studying purpose, consider turning it off. Or, at least, silence it and put it away where you can’t see the screen.
