"Put your phone down. You're addicted to that thing!" has become a classic go-to line for parents and others quickly ready and waiting to criticize every time we even reach for our phones or God forbid spend a few minutes on it replying to texts and checking social media notifications. It has always bothered me how as soon as we pick up our phones when we maybe "shouldn't be" we are looked at as though we just committed a felony. I mean, relax.
Just the other night, my family and I walked into a small restaurant where everyone eating were visible, and right in the middle of the tiny place was a family of three. Both the mom and dad were staring at their cell phones as a basket of bread sat between them. The son on the other hand, probably 11-years-old, had two headphones in and an iPad right next to his iced water. Entranced at their screens, no family member spoke for the ten minutes I stood at the door of the restaurant waiting for a table. My aunt looked absolutely disgusted like she was about to personally confront them, with my mom right there as her backup. Me, on the other hand, did find it sort of disturbing that the family would rather spend time with their electronics than each other, but hey, to each their own.
As our family sat down at a round table, where no one could hide any thing, my mom was quick to suggest, a little too harshly for my liking, "Phones in the middle!" Rolling our eyes, my brothers and I coughed up our phones and placed them in the middle of the table. Weird concept.
Well, two hours later when all ten of us were full after appetizers, dinner and dessert I had about 20 texts in my friend's group message talking about different places we wanted to go while studying abroad that they had just started to book during my time at dinner, some texts from my best friend asking what to respond to a boy with several texts in a row different variations of, "Hello?" (she must have had to figure it out on her own with that one), and a text from my supervisor at work asking me a few questions on why a few blog posts didn't go through and how I needed to check the system ASAP. Man, what had I missed? I reached to respond to first my supervisor, but within seven seconds received a death glare from my parents. "Really? Already back on it?"
To which I reply, "Is it really all that bad?" To those who constantly suggest that we, "Put our phones down and look around!" I agree with you. It's important. There's nothing I can't stand more than being in a car ride or airplane when the person next to you is playing Mario Cart the entire three hours. Pick up a book, look out the window. I completely agree. However, our phones are our main source of communication and communication is necessary to keeping up with the important people in our lives who are thousands of miles away.
So I ask, if we check our phones to respond to one or two texts at dinner with moderation, is it really all that bad? Why is there such a stigma that being on your phone is so terrible? In a world where mass communication is so essential to our every day lives, why are we acting like a phone is poisonous? No, I never want to turn into the family who allows their child to watch a movie at dinner as he eats his french fries with two headphones in, but I also don't need to be the family where "phones in the middle" is so highly emphasized. It's all about moderation.
