While today’s technology can be a wonderful way to keep us all connected and up-to-date, knowing when to turn it off is important, too.
Have you ever been at a restaurant, sitting at a table and eating with someone who won’t stop looking at their phone? How does that make you feel? Ignored? Annoyed?
Online dining company OpenTable launched a campaign (rather ironically, we think) on social media this week asking people to put their phones away for Mother’s Day.
RELATED: Can you put your phone down for Mother’s Day?
We think that request should extend to any time you’re dining with someone else. Constantly checking your phone is not only rude, it’s often hurtful. It makes you feel as if you’re not much fun as a dining companion if the person you’re with might as well be alone.
It doesn’t matter if you’re texting, checking your social media, posting to your social media, or checking for the latest news.
It’s bizarre when you think about it, more an act of someone addicted than normal behaviour. After all, what are you afraid will happen if you don’t look at your phone for a couple of hours? Will your social media friends shun you forever?
Or, rather, will you bring yourself back to the here and now. Real life, filled with the real people who love you. The people who deserve your consideration.
We bet you’ll get more out of your experiences with your phone put away than you would frantically trying to be here and there at the same time.
Likewise, you might find it beneficial to you to extend this phone-free time; where before you’ve always been so preoccupied trying to capture the moment in photos or video that you only see a beautiful vista, your kid’s soccer game, or the outing with your buddies through the tiny window of your smart phone screen rather than in the full technicolour experience granted you by your very human eyes.
Once you try it, you might find you like it.
— Black Press
