Phones are a constant presence everywhere. From snapping selfies to Instagram worthy shots of food. From people checking up facts through Google to others giving into their notification alerts, or simply scrolling idly through social media while everyone else does their thing.

Even if you’re enjoying a phone free moment in a cafe or restaurant, technology is still likely pervading on you. Maybe it’s TVs blurting out a constant stream of breaking news or the Sports’ channel in one corner, or it’s people obsessively trying to get the best shot of their food and/or drink.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m as guilty of taking the occasional photo of food/drinks…however it is usually because it looks stunning and is a rare treat. Even so, I take the photo and deal with it later. I also don’t feel the need to shift furniture around, re-organise the table, then stand on a chair and contort myself for the photo. I just nudge a few things away – scrunched up napkins from the earlier coffee spillage, etc.

“Rearrange the table at your peril- not only does it invite judgement from your fellow diners, but you’ll look like Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen shifting the furniture on Changing Rooms.”

Should we ban phones in Restaurants? By Lauren O’Callaghan. The Express, 29/04/16

For many years, I’ve been the one weird person that’s never really engaged with the instant messaging that everyone is so taken with. Someone sends a message, so the person MUST reply THAT INSTANT. I don’t know how many times I’ve been mid-conversation with someone when, suddenly, the person has blanked me to deal with the ceaseless bleeping. Then they’re looking back at me with a blank expression.

“Sorry, what were you saying?”
I start again, feeling mildly cheesed off. I get to approximately the same part of whatever I was saying and-
“Just a moment, I need to reply to this.”
They finish with the phone and they’ve completed forgotten I was on the second attempt at saying something. Then they start talking about the topic of the conversation going on on their phone. I am sat there wondering why they wanted to meet up when 95% of the time spent together is-

“Sorry, that’s so and so again. I need to give them a call to see what’s going on.”
It’s okay, I had already given up the idea of a real conversation and was contemplating whether to hold out or go home.

These are people who go into a manic panic if you don’t text them back within a given time frame. Suddenly you’re hit with a barrage of: “are you okay?”, “What’s wrong?” and “Have I don’t something to upset you?”… No? I was just having a bath? Honestly, I’ve almost lost friends in the time it takes me to wash my long hair. I’ve also been blissfully enjoying the summertime and gardening outside before now, only to have someone turn up at my door thinking I had had an accident or something. All because I hadn’t answered the landline or responded to texts for a few hours.

“…We use the time it takes for someone to text you back as a barometer for how interested or important we are to them…”

We are slaves to our phones. And it needs to stop. By Koraly Dimitriadis. The Daily Telegraph, 01/06/2017

I wouldn’t mind if it was a one-off. But it is all the time. No matter what I’m talking about – the weather, idle shit, or something really important – the phone bleeps, the person’s mind is instantly distracted from what I’m saying. Right there. While in the room with them. I’d have more chance at a conversation if I also sent a text. And you see it everywhere. People engaged in talking, then slowly one-by-one they break off to deal with the phone. These days, the adults are probably more guilty of doing this as work-life has crept into the phone too.

This has always been a minor niggle with me since phone contracts, and unlimited messaging and unlimited data was a common thing. Countless friends during school would be more fixated on the endless stream of IMs than what was going on around them.

Casing point: I was walking into a town with a friend who was constantly tapping away at her phone, and whenever I tried to speak, I got shushed and told to wait a moment. After ten minutes of walking, I sent her a text. She replied…Via text. Clearly not getting the hint. I stole her phone at that point and ran off, discreetly removing the battery when she couldn’t see and handed the phone back. I’ve never seen someone aged 17/18 kick up such a bloody raucous over something! She was cussing, screaming, crying and clawing at me. All because she was suddenly cut off from social media/texting and talking to someone she didn’t really know, over the friend of five years.

Since then, I’ve lived with the fact that maybe I’m a boring shite. And, well, fair enough. I have zero life, so even I can’t dispute that fact. I’ll quietly sit and observe the world – every single person, their head down tapping away or scrolling at their device. Married people. Couples on dates. Friends. Partners. Kids. Siblings. Parents. A space full of people all preoccupied with something happening a world away, not even aware of the one person staring absently into space enjoying a fleeting moment of beauty outside.

But how often is this happening to everyone? Do people even stop and see what’s going on? People moan and despair that people never meet up any more. No one shares how they feel or…ANYTHING with each other. And why is that? Because Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and any other app of choice is far more interesting than the present moment. How often do you go into a pub or a cafe now and see groups of people that “met up for a drink” all sitting in silence, hunched over their phones? Any conversation to be overheard is likely to be “did you see such and such on facebook?”

There’s a profound point in the film WALL-E that portrays the world we’re sliding into. The passengers of the Axiom starliner have degenerated somewhat into a horde of people all fixated on whatever is on the screen in front of them. They never look to the side to see someone else is there, they simply call them off their device screen.

The precence of technology getting in the way even makes a slight appearance in The Worst Witch: The Game (Season 3, Episode 6). There’s a new maglet game that has become incredibly popular in which the students (and teacher…) are so involved with, they are distracted. They forget the important details such as birthdays and ultimately they fight over it to win the best prizes, unaware of the magic starting to weaken and people vanishing.

What if people put their phones/tablets on silent – silent this is, not vibrate – or even better, flight mode when they were in company. And then put those devices in another room entirely. Preferably locked up. With the technophobe being given the key… Then they would have to remember how to talk to one another. When silence fell, either deal with it in a restful, contemplative way or acknowledge the heard of elephants in the room and deal with them.

Instead, the moment a silence happens or someone isn’t actively part of a conversation: out comes the phone, one man down. Eventually, there’s only one person left not staring at a blue screen. Either they concede and also look down at an endless stream of shit, or they sit there wanting to scream and take a hammer to all technology.

You only have to sit in a room and listen when everyone is engrossed with their phone/tablet. People breathing heavily and/or sighing in frustration/despair, tapping/clicking/hammering at the plastic or glass screen, and the constant bleeping, chirruping and vibrating of one device or another. There’s the presence of something ominous hanging in the air that signals the death of relationships as people drift further away from each, never even stopping to ask how they call became so detached.

Even if devices are on silent, you get a different kind of behaviour. The constant twitch towards the phone, and ultimately the checking of the phone. Then reply to the summons of the phone and some distraction via social media or shopping apps. Ever been talking to someone while they’re blatantly not listening to you, but they interrupt you to show you something they’re never going to buy? Ever been talking to someone, and had the person next to you interrupt you to show you something on their phone?

I don’t know how often someone has moaned to me about how I, or someone else, stopped talking and sharing stuff with them. I refuse to put my feelings into a text or an email, something so empty and mindless that someone is probably going to read while ignoring someone else. If I want to talk the deep and meaningful, I want it to be face-to-face. I want it to be a conversation involving one+ people; not some dirge monologue that no one is invested in and is lacking in the subtle cues of conversation.

There’s also the flip side. You finally sit down and pour out your emotions and hit send. The other person is way/busy with life in some way. They probably glanced at your email and decided to reply later, but then forget about it because…well, life happens! But you’re left feeling like utter trash with third rate issues and that no-one can even give you the time of day.

I live for moments spent with people. Maybe it’s because I’ve missed out on so many things other people take for granted in life; or because I’m a total loner and rarely get to see people that I crave the uninterrupted and total attention of the people I meet up with.

Even if it’s for a few hours before the normal world takes over again, is it really so hard for people to put technology down for a few hours and spend quality time with the people they love before it’s too late?

PostScript Edit:
While searching for images for this post, I wanted one of people socialising without technology to wrap this article up. Aside from the one I used, every other stock photo (and I went through several hundred) involves people on phones, people in isolation, social networking, social network/media icons, more people on phones…and this seagull squawking to spread the love:

See, he gets it.

Original article: Invasion of Technology in Every Moment.