Is Texting the New Smoking?
Dear Belladonna Rogers,
At a restaurant dinner with friends, I was looking forward to an enjoyable, sociable evening, only to find that one of my friends never stopped checking his emails while another took every cell phone call she received. These were not emergency calls — I could understand those. These were simply the normal electronic clutter of everyday life. I’m 64 and my dinner partners were both in their late 20s. They’re former students of mine. Why bother to meet two friends at a restaurant if you can’t divorce yourself from your technology?
iWonder in Wisconsin
Dear iWonder,
What you describe can be summarized in five words: a generational clash of cultures.
In the culture of your generation, this conduct would be deemed rude. In the culture of many in their teens, 20s, and 30s, it’s par for the course.
For people who enjoy connecting with others — and some of the comments on a recent advice column made clear that there are many who do not — the generational divide is this: while younger people are happy to connect with others face-to-face and through technology simultaneously, their elders prefer to connect with their friends, family and colleagues either in person or technologically, but not both at once. When they socialize with younger people, they tend to expect undivided attention and feel insulted, as you did, when they don’t receive it.
By contrast, the majority of younger people, as well as the more tech-forward segment of people in their 50s and beyond, are comfortable with — and are far from offended by — multi-socializing, the act of enjoying the companionship of their friends, family, and colleagues both in person and through texts and cell calls, all at the same time, with no offense intended, nor any taken.
GENERATIONAL NORMS
Typically, but not universally, younger people take multi-socializing for granted. By and large, their elders are both less accustomed to it and far less tolerant of it.
The biggest problems arise when different generations gather together, or seek to communicate with each other, each with its own preferred tribal customs.
When young people, even your own children or grandchildren, behave as your friends did over dinner, you’re entirely justified in informing them that although such behavior may fly with their contemporaries, it doesn’t with their elders.
I recently spoke with a 31-year-old about how he copes with these matters. I was stunned to learn that when he cooks dinner for himself, he also watches the news on TV, listens to music on the speakers of his iPod “as background music for the news,” talks with friends via a Bluetooth earbud with his iPhone “so I can be hands-free,” while he reads and responds to emails on his laptop on the counter next to the stove. By my count, that’s six activities at once, five of them technology-based.
When he’s out with friends at a bar or restaurant, he assured me, all his friends text, accept calls, and even initiate calls during meals together and no one feels dissed or insulted in the slightest.
This young man is bright. But it isn’t his intelligence that separates him from members of his parents’ generation. What distinguishes his age cohort from that of his parents is that his generation has been multitasking with technology since childhood. Adding one more tech tool isn’t a major challenge for his age-mates or for those who are younger.
The compulsive urge for constant connection is not, however, confined to the young. In terms of etiquette, however, it is more universally accepted by the younger generation. Even so, here’s a report of a recent meeting of men and women in their 50s and 60s:
While it may be pervasive among the young, it’s all too prevalent among their elders, as well. I’ve observed it time and again: people answering cell calls in restaurants, talking at the top of their lungs on crowded buses, etc. The other day I invited our new CEO to dinner with the division I head, and one of my colleagues, a normally civilized person, whipped out his cellphone to check his email, surf the web, and goodness knows what else — at dinner with the new CEO. This need for constant communication, accompanied by faux sighs about the never-ending stream of emails, has become a cliché of our era and is redefining what good manners are, and in an ugly way. It may be a lost cause, but one can certainly teach one’s children what is acceptable and what is not, no matter how much technological temptation abounds.
THE WAY IT WAS
We could all, in theory, agree that the manners our parents and grandparents instilled in us require some modifications to accommodate the times. Many of us can remember when the family dinner hour was all but sacred. Most people didn’t think of calling their friends during a mealtime 60 years ago, except in an emergency.
Receiving a telephone call was an exciting event, not something that occurred every few moments. Women, who were advised not to initiate calls to men (too “forward”), yearned for the telephone to ring.
Today, the concept of sacred time that cannot be interrupted by technology is now reserved to the religious. Those who don’t hold the Sabbath sacred receive and respond to emails and telephone calls almost 24/7.
ONE WAY TO UNDERSTAND THE URGE TO USE A SMART PHONE AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE
Although your young friends’ compulsion to use their smart phones at dinner was offensive to you, it might be helpful if you could think of their behavior as a contemporary equivalent of the habit of smoking in the past. Before the Surgeon General’s Report of 1964, Americans smoked everywhere — at home, in their offices, in restaurants, in elevators, and on public transport, including aboard airplanes. Tens of millions were addicted to nicotine. Today, while smoking is taboo in many shared public spaces, the addiction to smart phones is reminiscent of the compulsion to smoke.
People have always felt the need to do something with their hands to control anxiety. The familiar rituals of striking a match, lighting a cigarette, smoking and holding the cigarette controlled a lot of that nervousness. So, too, do the worry beads of the eastern Mediterranean:
Today’s technology provides a similarly soothing sense that one’s hands are constructively tethered not to a cigarette or to worry beads but to a smart phone, with its pleasing plethora of buttons and keys to press, calming tensions and keeping us all connected in the bargain.
Smart phones not only reduce anxiety by giving jittery fingers a focus, they also connect their owners to everyone in his or her life and to the news of the day at any given nano-second. For those who once fantasized about having a news service teletype machine in their bedrooms, a smart phone gives them the same satisfying shot of up-to-the-minute news at their fingertips. The answers to a veritable myriad of questions is in a tiny, portable piece of technology. For the curious, those burning for answers to arcane, bizarrely irritating inquiries, this is nothing less than manna from Heaven.
Is it any wonder that people are loath to turn them off and put them away?
COPING WITH THE WAY IT IS
As for your experience with your two younger friends, it would be entirely reasonable for you to tell them that after your last meal “together” you’d like them to agree to some ground rules before you join them in the future.
Among the guidelines would be that no one will check incoming emails or take non-emergency telephone calls. Anyone who can’t keep to such an agreement should at least go to the rest room and do his or her email-checking and telephone-calling from there.
You can make clear to them that you’d be happy to get together if you’ll be taking part in a genuine exchange and won’t be interrupting an evening of techno-communication with others who aren’t at the table with you.
If your friends can’t accept this condition, you could respond that you’ll stay home and let them telephone you while they’re having dinner with someone else. At least that way you’ll get to talk with them.
Despite your efforts to prevent a recurrence, if it does happen again, you could rise from the table, leaving them a note you printed out beforehand that would say something like this:
“I accepted your dinner invitation in the belief that we’d get to talk together and catch up. Apparently, this was not as important to you as the phone calls you’ve taken, without so much as an apology or an explanation. I have a lot to do, so I’m heading out to do it. Enjoy your calls and your dinner.”
They have a simple choice to make: They can play with their tech toys or have the benefit of your company. They just can’t have both.
People who accept or make calls in front of others often behave as if they’re offering others the riveting thrill of hearing some really fascinating conversation on their side of a phone call. It’s rarely as exciting as they imagine. “Uh huh,” “Yeah,” “Sure,” “Absolutely,” and “We’re expecting 22″ aren’t quite as stimulating to overhear as they may think. There are limits to the pleasures of eavesdropping.
If you’re getting together with only one friend and you can tell that he or she is getting antsy about being out of touch with colleagues or family members, you could say, “Should we both check our emails for a few minutes?” to put the other person out of his or her agony.
I have one such friend to whom I say that at least once during each meal whenever we get together. I’d prefer that he be calmer and fully engaged in our conversation than on edge and suffering from extreme iPhone withdrawal symptoms.
WHAT IF YOU’RE THE ONE EXPECTING AN IMPORTANT CALL DURING A MEAL WITH FRIENDS?
If you’re in the other position — that of someone expecting a genuinely important call during your planned meal with friends — I suggest mentioning this as soon as you sit down with your companions, apologizing in advance, saying you’ll keep the call as brief as possible, but that you have a patient, a baby-sitter, editor, client, or whoever it is who may need to contact you and whose call you will have to take.
That way your friends will be prepared for your absence from the table, and they’ll understand that you know it’s rude, but that there are extenuating circumstances.
I think the advance warning makes all the difference because it accords deference to the tradition of being present and attentive to the person or group with whom you’ve agreed to share a meal, while acknowledging that you are, in one way or another, “on call” and may, regretfully, have to absent yourself from your friends for a few moments.
What most of us seek at the heart of our interpersonal relations are kindness and consideration. Setting some simple guidelines before the meal begins should make future get togethers more enjoyable.
— Belladonna Rogers
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Another excellent column, Belladonna. I was stuck, very positively, by two things. First, I think you cut to the heart of the problem when you called it “generational.” What is standard practice and considered perfectly acceptable by one generation may seem rude to another. The second was your fine closing sentence, highlighting what we all really want from our relationships. Well done.
It is more than generational, it is the constant insecurity that so many people feel most of the time, the inability to stand on their own two metaphorical feet without having to hang on every word that someone might say to them. It is the need to feel important when one isn’t but also the need to look important even when really is. It is affectation and insecurity.
I will always think it rude. If I brought a paperback novel to a restaurant and started reading while the people I was with were talking, it would send the same message – you bore me.
but, but, when I do go out to dinner with my dad, we both bring books, as if the authors were our guests. Their death and distance are mediated by the books. It is crashingly painful to go to dinner with his wife, who insists on no books, and has inane, nearly advertisement fake-peppy chatter- she’s trying to prove that this is the most interesting discussion ever. We both would bring books, on similar- ish subjects, and share what we read, and we’d talk, too. It’s the one thing I miss about my dad being single- the chance to read and talk at the dinner table.
I noticed when cell phones first became available, people who had them would call repeatedly on the way to my home for dinner–you know, we are now at such and such intersection, etc.–but once they got in the door they had nothing to say. There’s communication and communication and a lot of this stuff is a poor substitute for the real thing.
When I find myself at the other end of a call from someone who just hasn’t figured out what to do with free time and has nothing to say, I pretend the call is breaking up.
I’m in my 40′s, betwixt the two groups described in the article. As a software engineer by trade I’m very comfortable with technology owning many computers, cell phones and the like, but while I’ll accept that its generational I’m not so willing to cavalierly disregard it as such. Its still rude and I have no interest spending limited and valuable time with someone only to be told through their actions that the person on the other end of their phone is more important to them than the person right in front of them they expended the effort to meet. Its as if they were to say, I’m interesting and social and I’ll talk to anyone..except the people here with me now. Typically, when I enter a social situation I don’t take my phone unless I’m expecting an important call or I’m on call. Then, as Belladonna says, I forewarn and then put the phone down and don’t use it unless that emergency call comes through. As the Japanese say, a man is the room he is in, and I want to be present in that room.
And it isn’t just social situations, at work, driving (oh…the driving, now I’m getting angry), for many its WAY out of hand. As a motorcyclist, a teenage girl or a middle aged salesman with a phone and a car are now the most terrifying organisms I deal with on a day-to-day basis. I’m astounded at the risks people will take to their own life and the lives of others simply to return a silly text while driving that I’d wager no one anywhere needs to read.
Thanks for your comment, Kevin, as it helps fill in other readers’ and my own knowledge about people in their 40s. You noticed that I skipped that decade because I wasn’t sure which group they would most likely “side” with on this. I asked many before writing, and they came down on both sides. Your comment is all the more helpful for that reason.
And, I agree, let’s not even get started on texters who’re going 65 mph on crowded highways. It’s not as if they’re all alone out there and could “only” harm themselves. They put millions of others at risk 24/7.
That’s for another column. Thanks again for your comment, representing your age group so eloquently.
Not so long ago, if you saw a driver weaving down the road, you’d likely conclude he was drunk. Today, it’s more likely the driver is messing with a cell phone. Both are just as dangerous to everyone else on the road.
A few weekends ago, my wife and I were walking the crowded sidewalks of London. It seemed about every fifth person was walking with their smartphone in front of them while they texted. They walked oblivious to the real world around them, weaving and bunching up just as badly as those drivers.
My wife is not in her 20′s, 30′s or even ’40′s, but she is constantly checking emails, FB, etc. On a recent trip to TN we did a lot of driving around to “see the area” around Chattanooga. She spent the entire time (5 days) face down looking at the “smart” phone in her lap. She even checked to see how many bars she had deep inside Lookout Mtn when we went to “See Ruby Falls”.
BiNGO on the motorcyclist part–and we frighten ourselves because we are so VERY attentive to even eye contact with other drivers.
Fundamentally I agree with the “new smoking” premise: if you have been in a club/bar lately the texting and ritual checking for messages (and even the time) are constant. (Even I know the damned thing will vibrate in your pocket if you have a message/call, so the whole gesture is a faux exercise in social cripplehood.)
I wonder if these people have any sense of how they REALLY LOOK? Just as people used to turn their back on someone smoking nearby, I wonder if they realize how many of us are turning out back on their texting…except when I’m on two wheels. Then, I get as far away as possible.
Lots of explaining of the “whys” but it’s still inconsiderate.
I always understood the rule of thumb to be “when there are no new rules, use the existing old rules,” i.e. no phones at the dinner table, whether it’s today or twenty years ago.
If “all your friends don’t mind” then you live in a social bubble.
I have a couple of nephews that like to golf with ‘Unk’ on occasion. Both are ‘texters’ and seem to always be texting someone or someone is texting them. This seems to trigger an urge in from the ‘textee’ to respond – and the sooner the better. It just can’t wait! Can’t leave it alone. I’ve politely asked both to leave the cell off when we go play. I explained to both that the golf course is a place to get away from the daily grind and relax and enjoy the company of those with you. You don’t need to share that 4 iron shot with the entire world. They’ve politely forgotten/refused my request. I’ve politely refused to sign them in to play a round – mentioning their incessant use of the cell phone to the point of distraction as the reason. They were warned and didn’t take heed. No amount of caterwauling is going to change my mind – at least for the rest of this year. Plead your case again next year.
I’ve removed texting from my phone – you can too – just call your cell provider and request no texting. I have two children who were constantly texting me about this or that along with many of their friends. I got tired of the chit-chat and told them so. Want to tell me something? Call me. Have an announcement? Email me – don’t put it on Face-Book and expect me to know about it. I won’t unless you call or email me. I prefer phone calls.
What I see in this new ‘gotta keep in touch’ attitude from the younger generation is just that – gotta know whats going on.
Sometimes you’re better off not knowing.
The other strange aspect to this is when you see groups of 3,4, 5, or even 6 young people in a group and none are talking to the others they are with.
“Gotta keep in touch” and “gotta know what’s going on” — so many times the stuff being texted is … nothing. Not important, inane, junk: certainly not as important as speaking f2f with the person you’re with.
Yes, part of this behavior diff. is generational, but I’d say a large part of it IS plain rude. I’m just 50, but have been heavily involved in technology since my entry into the business world many yrs. ago, and I’ve stayed current w/the latest & greatest gadgets the entire time.
However, when my soldier son came home for a visit before he was deployed to Afghanistan for a year, I began by chaffing at the constant interruptions in our conversations. Then *I* started fidgeting and sighing when I heard that damnable ringtone. Finally before it happened again, I asked him to follow some common sense/common courtesy rules when w/me. As others have said, if one is expecting an important call that cannot be delayed, tell me; and take only that 1 call. I exist as a person in the here in and now, not in cyberspace (“virtual” reality?), and that alone should take precedence. This is always true, but in the situation of my son leaving for what seemed a long time to a highly dangerous place … well, you can imagine how I felt. He had the grace to be somewhat abashed, and to this day he grants me the peace I requested. On the other hand, when I recently visited him & his new family (I’m a grammy now!), he unfortunately had no time off, and I had no problem w/him recvng & mkng text & calls after his work day was supposedly over — that’s his job as a sgt. Several times this meant he had to leave, but he kept us appraised of what was going on and when he’d be back … you guessed it, via texting
Sorry to be so long-winded getting to my biggest point: There’s a place & time for everything, but that can & does change with events. Be polite, respectful, and engaged with those in front of you, and you will be granted the same.
There is a lot to consider in Ms. Rogers’ column, though I for one find nothing wrong with email or texting when an in situ conversation does not involve or concern you.
But I must take issue with Ms. Rogers’ comparison of texting to smoking. Last time I checked, texting by itsef did not potentially cause health problems to anyone, leave them coughing or cause their clothes to stink.
Jeff, you don’t ride a motorcycle, do you. Like most drivers, you close the door and become oblivious to the world around you.
Mr. Cox, did you read the column or only the headline? From your comment, it sounds like only the headline. Here is the part comparing smoking to texting. I think you’ll see the similarity. It’s an analogy:
“People have always felt the need to do something with their hands to control anxiety. The familiar rituals of striking a match, lighting a cigarette, smoking and holding the cigarette controlled a lot of that nervousness. So, too, do the worry beads of the eastern Mediterranean/
“Today’s technology provides a similarly soothing sense that one’s hands are constructively tethered not to a cigarette or to worry beads but to a smart phone, with its pleasing plethora of buttons and keys to press, calming tensions and keeping us all connected in the bargain.
“Smart phones not only reduce anxiety by giving jittery fingers a focus, they also connect their owners to everyone in his or her life and to the news of the day at any given nano-second.”
I read enough to know you left out a key paragraph:
Although your young friends’ compulsion to use their smart phones at dinner was offensive to you, it might be helpful if you could think of their behavior as a contemporary equivalent of the habit of smoking in the past. Before the Surgeon General’s Report of 1964, Americans smoked everywhere — at home, in their offices, in restaurants, in elevators, and on public transport, including aboard airplanes. Tens of millions were addicted to nicotine. Today, while smoking is taboo in many shared public spaces, the addiction to smart phones is reminiscent of the compulsion to smoke.
The analogy is flawed, at best. Texting by itself hurts no one. Ms. Rogers may try to equate smoking with “fidgeting,” but if so just say “fidgeting.” She doesn’t.
Smoking was always more than just fidgeting. That’s where the analogy to texting today fails.
Jeff, if you have any doubt that the analogy is apt, I refer you to the tragic Comment #11, below. “Texting by itself hurts no one,” you write cavalierly and confidently. I beg to differ. I will not check for your reply.
I just don’t understand the whole tech world. This is an incredible expansion of the number of addictive toys now available legally to all of us–any age. The “new smoking” phrase indicates a sense of addictive activity going on. Hell, TV is addictive. I also wonder why it is that people think that if they video themselves with the Grand Canyon or the Empire State Building as a backdrop, it will somehow be more real for them than the actual experience of being there was. Be here now, was a refrain of werner erhardt with his est “seminars.” He was right, though. The obsession with the teeny screens is a good way to NOT be here now.
I have to admit, at 91, to being a dinnertime multi-tasker. I have a martinti, then eat, watch cable news, read (during commercials) all at the same time.
And I have been accused of reading when in company in my past life.
Had an experience with ‘THE YOUNG’ last year, in Maine, children of my aged friend took me to see a movie I wanted to see. Which was very considerate and nice of them!! Sat down in the middle, suddenly realized (while waiting for movie to start) BOTH were engaged in computer activies!
Now that’s RUDE. But I have to say I was more amused than outraged. I thought so this is what I hear about.
Sadly, tomorrow we will bury a sweet 17 year old boy from Paragould, AR who was texting his friend and ended up wrapped around a tree. I am afraid that texting is far worse than smoking and the generational excuse is lame. Smoking is a slow death and texting is a FAST death