On more than one occasion I have made mention of one of the most annoying occurrences that has only grown with time, that being people in a social gathering or situation ignoring other people because they're paying too darned much attention to their phones. It is a particular pet peeve of mine.
The first time it ever intruded into my notice was during a gathering of the WP Clan for Thanksgiving here at The Manse. It included family from both sides of the Family, Deb's and mine. The one thing I noticed part way into the day was that almost every one of the teens had their noses buried in their phones, texting away to friends both near and far. The kids were physically present, but their attention was anyplace but here It got to the point where all the parents demanded that their respective children shut off their phones or have them taken away until the day was over. There were the expected protests, but in the end all of the kids shut them off and put them away. It wasn't too long after than you could see them start jonesing as if they needed a fix. They had no idea how to adequately communicate without using their electronic addictions.
It's only gotten worse since then.
These days, “phubbing” or phone snubbing has become an all too common practice. What's worse is that many of the people committing such acts see nothing wrong with it. That begs the question – Why waste time getting together in social situations if all you're going to do is ignore each other and pay attention to whatever is on your phone that has you enthralled? Why not just stay home and save both time and money by not traveling to wherever it is you're going to ignore the people around you? Leave all of the actual socializing to those of us who are capable of interacting with other people face to face. That way you can do all of the electronic interfacing you want without restriction and we won't be annoyed by the fact that you don't even realize the rest of us exist.
I figure the problem will eventually solve itself when all of the phubbers finally die out without leaving any progeny behind since they never bothered to have kids. This will be because they were always too busy with their phones to actually meet anyone and have sex.
