10 May 2017

And Then, An Observation...

Even before I start typing I’m wondering why I’m even contemplating typing in relation to such a basic, everyday observation. Possibly because it took place on the next table to us two.

Backtrack. We took a meandering drive, saw a fine looking pub in a small market town so stopped for lunch. As you do. My little nest of vipers had her usual choice of the mega mixed grill which, upon arrival, I would’ve had second thoughts about climbing never mind eating it. Man, it was piled high. It was damn good food all the same.

While waiting for our order, a young couple, who looked like they should’ve been in school, came in clutching a toddler and trailing a buggy with a deeply sleeping, thankfully, babby. Also in tow was the mum of him or her, I know not of which. Not surprisingly both young parents were glued to their phones even through the process of navigating through the other tables, chairs and lunchers.

Mum of him or her chose food from the menu, ordered and when the food arrived the young couple actually put their phones down for the first time! For why? To frantically cut up their meals into fork-sized bits. I found myself willing them to get on with the cutting so’s they could get back to their phones as I could sense their discomfort at being ‘away’ from the screen. This done, they were back to eating via fork and essential phone operations resumed being conducted with the other.

Mum of him or her? Looked like she was just a silent onlooker. We were tempted to ask mum of him or her to join us for a little conversation but in this modern world it’d probably be construed as inappropriate behaviour and we may well have spent the rest of the day banged-up.

See? Nothing new, its just that it was so close and for an extended, uninterrupted period that I found it strangely fascinating.

The toddler? He was glued between mum and dad and silent. Probably wishing for the day he gets his first phone so’s to discover what’s in ‘em of such importance. Man, is he in for a disappointment.

Quote;  Alex Morritt.

“Casting a curious gaze down on planet Earth, extra-terrestrial beings could well be forgiven for assuming that we humans are programmed in every move we make, by a palm-sized, oblong, slab of glass. More perplexing than that, who on earth could convince them otherwise ?”

2 comments:

A K Haart said...

"Even before I start typing I’m wondering why I’m even contemplating typing in relation to such a basic, everyday observation."

I often feel like that, but it's still amazing. A while back we were in one of those soft play centres with Granddaughter. A woman on a nearby table spent an hour and a half on her phone. Buy a coffee, tell the kid to go and play then out comes the phone.

Mac said...

A K Haart,
And the cost? Seeing the adverts, seems for a fixed monthly cost you get ‘x’ number of calls and text messages at no extra cost per month. Looks like these youngsters must use their monthly included texts in the first hour of the month. What’s the cost after that? Their bills must be terrifying. That said, it doesn’t seem to slow them down. What is it? Mortgage or mobile?