How often do you catch yourself feeling the compulsive pull to check your phone while sitting at the table with friends or family? I can’t imagine there are many of you out there who can say, “Never!” We live in an immediate information age where, “Americans now spend an average of 4.7 hours per day on their phone, according to a 2015 Informate Mobile Intelligence study.” That’s a little less than half your waking day checking your phone! What could possibly be that important?
Well, it appears one Brad Williams, a Chick-fil-A operator from Suwanee, GA, wondered the same thing.
“We really want our restaurant to provide a sense of community for our customers, where family and friends can come together and share quality time with one another,” said Williams. “But as we all know, technology increasingly demands more of our time and can be a big distraction, even while we’re eating. This got me thinking about what we could do to reduce this distraction during meals.”
What he did was nothing short of a stroke of genius: the “Cell Phone Coop.” This “coop” is a simple box on the table where your phones are placed, and left, for the entirety of your meal. Mr. Williams obviously knew it would be a challenge for most to disconnect, so he added the additional incentive of a free dessert if you make it through the entire meal technology free.
“The challenge has completely taken off,” says Williams. “We have families who aren’t successful the first time and come back to try again. We even have people asking to take the boxes home with them! Our whole community is talking about it.”
Bravo Brad Williams, you’ve taken a giant step toward helping bring people back to earth and interacting with each other.
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