I love people watching…it’s just my thing (don’t judge me) and with Valentine’s Day coming up, it feels like prime time to notice how couples actually interact when they’re out together.
You see it everywhere. Two people at the same table, phones within reach. One scrolling, the other waiting. Moments of silence filled not with conversation, but with screens.
I also bought a book to take me on those occasions:
Because…you know, these days, being together doesn’t always mean being present.
It also made me reflect on how technology has slowly reshaped our relationships, often in ways we don’t even notice until we step back & observe (like I do).
When you look around in public spaces, do you notice the same thing?
I often see families dining out together, and every individual, parents and children, on their own devices. I really notice this because I make quite an effort to not be the family that does this… And sometimes it is hard because kids and adults get restless, and it seems always easier to pull out a device if even to show pictures (which almost always happens if there is at least one person with a smartphone present).
But reflecting back on my own childhood, at some point when we ate dinner we watched TV at the same time. I grew to dislike how TV did this, although I get that being absorbed elsewhere is ‘easier’ than the intimacy of being together. So this phenomenon is not really new but smartphones/tablets have just made it worse.
I guess I really didn’t see this growing up because my family ate dinner in the kitchen & we didn’t have a TV in the kitchen, so we couldn’t watch it. But as smartphones & tablets became mainstream, I began to notice how those devices were just always in people’s hands, like some sort of digital pacifier.
You reminded me of how “TV tables” were once popular – letting family members abandon a single dining table so that each person could sit in his or her own location at a TV table while everyone watched TV.
It seems to be quite tempting for parents today to put a smartphone or tablet – covered with a brightly covered silicone case – in the hands of small children, who truly are pacified – at least until the parents take the device away, at which point hell breaks loose.
It is unfortunately a cycle that is all too easy to get into. Kids that are used to that level of stimulation will not give up asking for it, and for the parents it is easier to give in for the ‘pacifying’ effects.
My sister has her young kids (6 and under) watching YouTube on her phone when they are eating in restaurants. She says it’s the only way they will behave, and they will indeed stay seated for the whole meal as long as a show is playing. Unfortunately, toys and games are no match for the screen. When my kids and other siblings’ kids (who do not get screens) are there, they are instantly drawn to that phone, even though we always bring games and drawing supplies.
Lucky~! For us, the TV would be in the living room, but was visible from the dining table, so the seats that faced the TV would be most popular. We gathered frequently with relatives and instead of chatting, everyone would just be watching whatever was on TV. At least back then, everyone was watching the same show. Nowadays everyone is absorbed in their own devices.
Yeah honestly I kinda miss old days with Discovery or Animal Planet, or watching documentaries or something with my parents together. CRTs were also not as harmful to the eyes and circadian rhythm as LED screens are (blue light).
But I stick with no TV in the house, kids are too nasty bragging about screen time (and I’m maybe too harsh in that regards, I see it’ll be easier with no restrictions or no screens in vicinity at all). My 2.5 yo recently managed to watch something from behind his siblings’ shoulder and today he saw me working at he laptop and approached me like a pokemon called Youtube: “YouTube. YouTube? YouTube?”
