Have you scanned a restaurant while eating out lately? It seems like everyone spends the entire meal, or at least, the part where they used to actually talk to each other, on their smartphones. The irony, in my opinion, is that I suspect they are checking emails and social media, in an effort to “connect” with other humans, while an actual human being is sitting right in front of them.
I swear that not too long ago, it was considered rude to be on your phone when you were at dinner or checking out at the grocery store, but it is getting more and more common place. Our local theater will still ask you to leave {without a refund} if they catch you texting during a movie {it didn’t stop a guy in front of me recently from actually taking an incoming call during a movie–and then talking for like 5 minutes. Not kidding.} I found an NPR article, though, that suggested that social norms are changing when it comes to cell phone usage during previously inappropriate times.
A recent study showed that, on average, people checked their cellphones 110 times per day. If you take out sleeping hours {assuming 8 hours of sleep}, that’s like once every 9.8 minutes. Can you even imagine if we decided we were going to do something else every 9.8 minutes? Like, every 9.8 minutes you drop and do sit-ups for 30 seconds {or however long you usually check you phone?} or what if you practiced a musical instrument {played one song} every 9.8 seconds? We’d actually have time to get strong/good at something. It seems crazy to commit to honing a skill every 9.8 seconds, but we will give our time away to our phones?
So, I guess the whole point of this post is to ask you: Am I just part of a generation who grew up without phones and still think there should be some etiquette while dining out? Or are times a’ changing {the fact that I even wrote “a’ changing” pretty much answers my own question} and I need to evolve with the world of changing social graces?
~Mavis
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