Have you ever been with a group of people at dinner and it seems like you’re alone because everyone else is on their phone. We’ve all experienced this at one point or another, yet unless we’re on a date, we don’t really have a problem with it because we’re probably participating in it too. Whether they’re checking Twitter, FaceBook, email or sending a quick text, it seems as if social gatherings don’t have a lot of socialization amongst people at the gathering, but rather, with people over their phones.

This blog topic came about while I observed a group of my friends texting while we were at dinner. Four out of six of my friends were on their phones the whole time and only addressed us occasionally. And I thought to myself … this is normal … but why is it bothering me so much? The answer was that I was outside the circle of phone hypnotism that my friends were. Seeing it from an outside perspective really showed me how rude it really is. People are talking to you yet you rather text with other people, or check your twitter. The same way that this affected my friends, it also affects everyone in this era. Social Etiquette has gone out the window. Unless we are sleeping, we always have our phones in our hands. It actually feels like a part of us is missing when we don’t have our phones on us. This defiantly is a sad phenomenon that has developed from social media and Smartphone. As much as these outlets have changed our lives for the better, it has also affected us in a bad way. We have less face to face interactions but an increase in our online presence. We all understand we have a job and need to check emails (or at least we hope that’s what you’re doing on your phone and you’re not actually tweeting about an event rather than telling the person right next to you) but next time, ask yourself, can that tweet, text or email wait until after dinner?