Phone Manners

Todd: So I'm here with Angela, and in a previous interview we were talking about kids and technology and devices, and how these days often people look at their device when they're with another person. How do you feel about that? If you're eating with somebody, you're at dinner, is it okay to check your phone?

Angela: We have a rule in our house, no phones at the table. Absolutely no phones.

Todd: Very nice.

Angela: Because you know, you see people, they meet in restaurants, they sit around a table, the food comes, but everybody's looking into their phone, and engaging with whatever they're doing on their phone, and not talking to the people who have met them. And I see people walking on the subway, the street, head in their phone. It's ...

Todd: It is crazy.

Angela: It's really sad.

Todd: And if you think about it, we used to have manners. Things you couldn't do. For example, no elbows on the table, no hats inside the house. I mean it sounds silly, but I remember those rules as a kid. The one that was really hard was the no elbows on the table. Yeah, so it's interesting that we don't have new rules, like we should reinvent them. You can't have your phone on during the plane when it takes off, so your rule is a good idea.

Angela: Yeah, no phones at the table.

Todd: So you're an English teacher, what do you think about phones in the classroom?

Angela: If they're on a break, I always call it their text break, because when I'm teaching English out here I find that people have got their phone to their hand, and maybe they're Googling a word or something, so it's not too much of a distraction. But when you stop them for a break, as soon as you say "let's have a break now," they're all after their phones, and they're sitting individually looking at their phones.

Todd: And it's silent, I know what you mean. I'll teach, and it used to be you would say "okay take a break," and it would be really loud, they would start talking with each other. And these days it's just silence, they just go and they do that motion of just flicking with their finger, as they're scrolling down. And I know I just sound like some old guy, "hey, get off my lawn!" And I have the same problem, I want to check my phone all the time, but I have to admit it's strange I think.

Angela: And now you needn't even check your phone, you just look at your Apple watch or your watch on your wrist, it's going to tell you if your phone needs your attention.

Todd: But it used to be where I would say things like, you know as a teacher you're teaching, you can see if the student's looking down at their phone, and I would say "hey, don't check your phone." But now these days kids actually call me on it, they're like, "Oh, I'm looking up a word," or "Oh, I'm checking something," and they literally are checking something. And the kids are good at using their phone as a learning tool -

Angela: Yes, I think that's fine.

Todd: So it is, it's a gray area these days. Yeah. So when you're with somebody you never pop out your phone?

Angela: I would admit that I will be guilty of checking my phone in my bag, but I would never get it out and go on Facebook or Instagram and start Instagramming, I would just look at it and put it away.

Todd: Yeah. There's other things I've done, I mean could be because I'm getting older, but for example I try not to listen to my iPod so much anymore, or my phone. Radio, music, whatever. I actually just try to listen. I notice that when I am always listening to everything I kind of tune the world out, and I might miss things.

Angela: You will miss things. You see people, I've been quite tempted some days to put my earphones in and walk to the BTS, but actually I think, no, you'd miss the traffic noise, you miss the tuk tuks, you miss a dimension of the world that's happening around you. And then you get on the BTS and everybody in the carriage is head down, same position, on their phones.

Todd: Yeah. And actually I don't do it just for that reason, because I noticed that I'm missing out. It's so tempting, but I might see something.