. . as you arrive [at the restaurant], each person places their phone facedown in the center of the table… . As the meal goes on, you’ll hear various texts and emails arriving… and you’ll do absolutely nothing. You’ll face temptation—maybe even a few involuntary reaches toward the middle of the table—but you’ll be bound by the single, all-important rule of the phone stack.
Whoever picks up their phone is footing the bill.
I hope I never have friends like this.
Listen, “R.B.” from Kempt, whatever the hell that is, this is not the world we live in now. I don’t carry a supercomputer in my pocket so I can pretend it doesn’t exist. I don’t relinquish all the hugely beneficial progress of cheap, powerful technology because you find it less than hip and somehow harshing your mellow. I have it because I like it.
And the last thing I’d ever want from a casual get-together with friends is some bullshit draconian diktat about what I can and cannot do with my own personal property. If something like a no-phone rule is set up well in advance of some particular party or event, fine, make it clear from the get-go, and make it be a big exception.
But if I ever turned up at a restaurant to meet friends and someone told me, “Okay, leave your device on the phone stack,” I think all I’d have to say is, “I didn’t want to leave the house anyway.”*
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*This is almost always true, and I am unlikely to be found at (or invited to) a “dinner” with “friends.” So take that as you will. Found via Marco.org.
Near-Earth Object 