I saw a booth at the restaurant with four Millennials on their phones paying no attention to each other.

Video I saw yesterday that is pretty fitting for this thread.

Millennials in the Workplace Training Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz0o9clVQu8

Headphones invented, people listened to music on their own (speaker purists look on in disgust)

TVs invented, people stared at a glowing box (radio purists look on in disgust)

Radios invented, people sit around listening to a talking box (live music purists look on in disgust)

Cars invented, people drive around in a horseless carriage (horse and buggy purists look on in disgust)

Factories proliferate, people work inside (farmers look on in disgust)

Farming culture grows, people eat all their food from one or two fields (hunter-gatherers look on in disgust)

Fire discovered, people ate cooked food (raw diet cavemen look on in disgust)

*********************************************************************************************

Things evolve. Perhaps the OP is the one who needs a recalibration of viewpoint away from his own "me-centric" one. Live and let live, bro.

four Millennials at a restaurant... TOGETHERNot so smart, are you???

WhitePony wrote:

http://liquid-state.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/reading_on_train.jpg

Why aren't these people talking to each other?!?

A rabbi, minister, mullah and priest were in a booth at a restaurant ...

I miss the Herald Tribune, The Journal-American and the World Telegram & Sun

WhitePony wrote:

old men die wrote:

You know, throughout history, I bet every old man probably said the same thing. And old men die, and the world keep spinning.

http://liquid-state.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/reading_on_train.jpg

Why aren't these people talking to each other?!?

anapaix wrote:

who are you to judge others' pursuit of happiness? Mind your own business.

That's exactly it, each an atomistic bubble interested in others only as abstractions on the Interwebs.

In fact, what older people do is actually make plans in advance and stick to them. And studies show that younger people multitask, yes, but in such a way as to do everything worse, doing everything badly and remembering nothing.

Other options wrote:

Was it at the end of the meal? Maybe they were all looking up movie times or something for after or what their plan was next? That's pretty normal. Also, it's been studied and shown that younger people can actually be on their phones and still communicate with people while older people cant multitask like that. For reference I'm 27 and would never be on my phone during a dinner like that unless it was the end and we were figuring out movie times etc.

Those people on the commuter train are reading about the world, among strangers on the way to work, not navel gazing.

Good friend's wife makes any/all guests leave cell phones in basket @ front door. No exceptions. She has her issues, but it's refreshing and changes the dynamics of the visits big time. I'm all for less phone time and more face to face interaction, but have become dependent on the devices like most.

Convexity wrote:

Headphones invented, people listened to music on their own (speaker purists look on in disgust)

TVs invented, people stared at a glowing box (radio purists look on in disgust)

Radios invented, people sit around listening to a talking box (live music purists look on in disgust)

Cars invented, people drive around in a horseless carriage (horse and buggy purists look on in disgust)

Factories proliferate, people work inside (farmers look on in disgust)

Farming culture grows, people eat all their food from one or two fields (hunter-gatherers look on in disgust)

Fire discovered, people ate cooked food (raw diet cavemen look on in disgust)

*********************************************************************************************

Things evolve. Perhaps the OP is the one who needs a recalibration of viewpoint away from his own "me-centric" one. Live and let live, bro.

The OP made an observation the it seems like he struck a nerve with many.

Let me take the OP's observation a bit further and also address the poster above who is generalizing that the changes in technology and behavior has occurred through history and this is just another example of the older set being upset with advancements of society.

Most advancements have a range of effects, mostly good but some negative also. Many of our advancements have thoroughly made our lives easier but some have also added pollution, higher cancer rates, obesity, and certainly our level of literacy has declined (compare the letter written during the civil war under very dire circumstances to what is written now).

I think it fair to ask if there are negative aspects of the need to create and maintain your social media persona. (The numerous selfies are one aspect of that) Is there a negative side to the rapid exposure of so much information and it often of very questionable validity?

Questions to ponder.

Not That Old wrote:

I saw a booth at the restaurant

You went to a restaurant that has booths? Stop going to crappy restaurants and you'll see less of the kind of thing you describe.

KudzuRunner wrote:

My question is, Why do four young people take the trouble of getting together at a restaurant if they're going to pay more attentions to their phones--and lots of other "people": FB "friends," YT vids, Instagram photos, Grinder pix, etc.--than to each other? Unless it's all just an excuse for a group selfie. What does that selfie actually memorialize? What, precisely, does the photo help them remember? That they were physically present but attentionally absentee?

Who are you to judge how people spend their time?

I'm not a fan of their choices either, but you cannot judge.

Convexity wrote:

Headphones invented, people listened to music on their own (speaker purists look on in disgust)

TVs invented, people stared at a glowing box (radio purists look on in disgust)

Radios invented, people sit around listening to a talking box (live music purists look on in disgust)

Cars invented, people drive around in a horseless carriage (horse and buggy purists look on in disgust)

Factories proliferate, people work inside (farmers look on in disgust)

Farming culture grows, people eat all their food from one or two fields (hunter-gatherers look on in disgust)

Fire discovered, people ate cooked food (raw diet cavemen look on in disgust)

*********************************************************************************************

Things evolve. Perhaps the OP is the one who needs a recalibration of viewpoint away from his own "me-centric" one. Live and let live, bro.

Nice! OK, touche´. Modern distraction is an age-old concept. Got it.

There are indeed relevant precedents for what's going on here. When telephones came in, visiting hours (with calling cards) suddenly came to seem old-fashioned. You're suggesting, in effect, that those of us who critique four attentional-deficit millennials "having lunch in a restaurant" (complete with scare quotes) are attentional slowpokes from the Old World.

I think that healthy cultures negotiate these things, rather than capitulating wholesale to the young. We needed the flappers to replace the Victorian matriarchs (see Ann Douglas, TERRIBLE HONESTY: MONGREL MANHATTAN IN THE 1920s), no question. But that doesn't mean that flappers had all the answers.

You think you're a flapper who has all the answers. See me in forty years, when your connective tissue is aging, girl.

Maybe they were group chatting to keep your nosy ass from eavesdropping.

Every generation is a product of the life experiences available at the time....young people are very different today than when I was young, but so are old people. The greatest generation is almost extinct and the baby boomers are replacing them as the "old people"....and the two generations are very different. What blows my mind is that one day we will have old women named Amber or Taylor who have lower back tattoos and social media savvy.

Ca$hclay wrote:

Good friend's wife makes any/all guests leave cell phones in basket @ front door. No exceptions. She has her issues, but it's refreshing and changes the dynamics of the visits big time. I'm all for less phone time and more face to face interaction, but have become dependent on the devices like most.

Anyone old enough to remember going to a couples party where all of the men put their car keys into a bag and at the end of the party, the women select a set of keys to determine who she had sex with?

Maybe we're not so dumb as to fall for your irrational rationality. If you're so paranoid that you have to text to chat while sitting next to each other, you're literally insane.

My connective tissue is already aging. What makes you think it isn't?

If I live for 40 more years, I will have the same view on life as I do now and did many years ago...and that has nothing to do with calling anyone a "slowpoke."

What I am actually saying was summed up in the last line of my initial post.