When I’m having a conversation with someone, I find it a bit rude when I notice they are glancing at their phone every few minutes.
I understand that text messaging, Facebook, Twitter, etc. has improved our lives in numerous ways, but when I’m in the company of someone else and notice their fingers are glued to their QWERTY keyboard. It seems as if they’ve never made eye contact with another human being, I can’t help but become annoyed.
It’s not proper communication etiquette to be spending time with a friend, and at the same time be chatting on the phone with someone else. It’s the same with texting, because it’s difficult to focus on both conversations whether you’re talking or texting.
It is one thing to quickly answer a text or two when you’re not directly focusing on someone else in a conversation, but it’s another to be checking your phone every minute and have a conversation via text message when you’re in the presence of one or more persons.
Many students on campus are glued to their phones more than ever and seem to give them more attention than they do people within their presence. I question the existence of courtesy, etiquette and manners among communication. Have we become so intertwined within technology that it seems strange to talk with others in person, not through a device?
I’ll admit, that at times, I am also glued to my phone, but that’s when I’m generally by myself. I make sure that I’m not paying full attention to my phone and barely any attention to the person in front of me.
Among one of the most irritating instances is when I’m talking to someone else and the only response I get is a “yeah” or a “uh-huh” as their answering text after text the entire time. To me, that is very rude.
The impression I get from people who do that repetitively, make me wonder if they would take out their phone and answer a text while on a job interview or speaking to someone with higher authority. I couldn’t help but wonder if they became so accustomed to constant texting in all situations, they would then conduct that manner out of habit at the wrong time.
At times, I catch myself answering my phone more often than not when I’m having a conversation with another person. I don’t want to make them feel like their company isn’t important to me, because that’s how I and I’m sure many others feel when we’re singled out by a BlackBerry, iPhone or similar cellular device.
I would often like to tell those people to go spend time with whoever they’re texting if the conversation is that important, or just call me later when they’re not zoned out into their phone.
In some cases, such as being stuck on an awkward date, it’s a good distraction, but still not polite. Either way, the point remains the same:It’s annoying. n