Question: Who is more important? The person with whom you are physically present or the person trying to reach you via text, email, phone, social media, etc.?
Answer: It depends on the context, i.e. expecting a call from your pregnant wife - OK, but in the majority of cases, it should be the person with whom you are with. Right? So why do people feel the need to take social calls of unimportant chit chat, read emails or respond to non-urgent texts leaving their friend/colleague standing there bored. Is your time more important than theirs? Of course not. So why does everyone do it?
Several years ago I was in Hong Kong visiting a friend. My first night out, we went to a very posh restaurant, patronized mainly by the wealthy locals and rich, overly self-confident expats. The restaurant had a gorgeous rooftop bar from which you could see the bustling City, looking a bit like Miami does New York, with a touch of Chinatown, and bathed in a sea of colored lights.
Of course to get to the restaurant, one had to take an approximate 10-15 second elevator ride to the top. Stepping in with my friend were two middle aged English gentlemen dressed in expensive suits wearing a look of self-importance. Immediately the two English businessmen became engrossed in their Blackberries tapping away, suddenly my friend was as well. So I stood silently, surrounded by the men scrolling up and down emails for seemingly no purpose. Amused at the situation, I finally decided to break the uncomfortable silence, as well as take a slight stab at my friend who was now ignoring me, by interjecting with ‘Should I pull out my Blackberry as well? I am feeling slightly left out.” Judging by their response, they weren’t so amused.
You would think that as time passed, people would have begun adopting better phone etiquette rules as a backlash. But with the advent of smartphones it has gotten worse. We are no longer respectful of the physical world and other peoples’ times. People get angry if you don’t text or call back immediately. Does having a phone require me to be contactable at all times? Why does the person reaching me via a mobile device take precedent over someone who is there or the work I am trying to finish undistracted?
The Waterfall Effect
You know and love the drinking game right? Everyone stands in a circle; one person starts drinking, then the next, the next and so forth. Finally the initiator stops, and only then, can the next person stop, and then the next etc. This is usually great fun – of course it has become less so in my later years when my workload has increased, while the number of drinks required to cause a hangover has decreased.
How about when you are seated with friends at the table having a great conversation when one person starts playing with their smartphone, then the person seated next to them starts, etc. Finally conversation ends and some are left looking into space, others absent mindlessly searching the web waiting for the oblivious initiator once again to stop, so they can resume the conversation. This is usually not so fun.
I think we can all come up with situation after situation in which smartphones have disrupted social settings, offended attendees, and frustrated others. Yet we all do it, unaware of our consequences. Here we are a civilized nation with cultural norms from opening doors for women (I am still a huge proponent of this) to chewing with your mouth closed to placing a napkin on your lap when eating. These are generally adhered to in order to maintain a respectful society even though some may be slightly unnecessary. Yet we have no etiquette for mobile phone usage. No respect for others yet we all use our mobiles whenever we feel like it. Have we become a society where new rules of etiquette are no longer formed? As our way of life rapidly changes, social manners have failed to keep up. Will this ever change?
I am still waiting.
