Social interaction is dying quickly.

[sophiealbert92]

I work at a restaurant. Every day I see hundreds of people. All of them, sitting at a table with their phones in their face. Groups of 2, 4, 6. All of them. No talking. No interaction. Mindless scrolling. Even the older folk I see do this which is BIZARRE. Children, watching videos on their parents iPad. No coloring menus. What happened to that? I deliver food to their tables and they can hardly move their cellphones out of the way for me to set their plates down.
I know people on here are probably well aware of this reality but it crushes me and I need to talk about it. Something has got to change. Quick. What a sad existence devoid of human connection.
And yes. Not everybody is like this. It truly makes me happy to see a table of 8 people enjoying each others company, laughing, telling stories etc. The way humans have done for millennia. Yes. There are parents who don’t shove the electronics in their kids face. There is the old couple enjoying their vacation, drinking a beer, sat across from each other, holding hands. It gives me hope. We’re not all zombies. We need this connection. It’s still there. But how long until it’s not?
To think I once knew what it was to be a human. Enjoying the company of my friends and family, and living my life in the moment. How I wish I could turn the clocks back.

Exactly. Imagine striking up a conversation with someone in a GP waiting room and getting a black w by blow account of why they're there?! No thank you.

I work in a huge place, but not alot of people around if you are on site and what I have noticed is that walking past anyone under the age of 30 is an awkward moment. I say 'hi' as we're all colleagues even if I haven't seen or met you before but with the younger colleagues they either put their head down so they don't need to interact, completely ignore you or look at you like the interaction is alien to them. It truely is sad. My adult child will say they spoke to so and so today, I query was it an actual phone call or face time, no, it's always a message. Where are we heading?

You wouldn't sit in a restaurant reading a book if you were in company, it would be considered very bad manners or just weird! IMO scrolling through your phone is the same thing.

I do see it in restaurants sometimes but that’s just a snippet. I still see plenty of dc & adults interacting with each other so I don’t think social interaction has actually stopped.

I was at a pub and there was a group of about 8 adults plus a not-quite-toddler in a high chair who was given a phone and NOT ONE of those adults said a word to that child barely the whole time.

You’re not wrong, OP. Lazy parenting/no parenting. The effects of this are very far reaching.

I don't carry a mobile phone. I have one at home for authentication messages but can't stand the constrained texting user experience, compared to a proper computer keyboard and big screen. I use email on a desktop computer. I like to talk to people face-to-face, arranging to meet friends at a particular place and time. My friends, who all have phones, are seldom late, and they mostly put away their phones when we talk. In my house when I was growing up my parents could not afford a phone (landline), so perhaps I never got into the habit of talking on the phone. The first time I used a phone was at work.

We went out for a curry recently and a young (early 20’s?) couple arrived and sat at the table next to us. I overheard a couple of snippets of their conversation and I thought how lovely to be out on a date, it seemed like a newish relationship from the few bits I overheard. But very quickly before their main course arrived they both got phones out and sat in silence scrolling! Every so often they’d show each other a reel or something funny. They barely talked for the rest of the meal, then they left together holding hands, looking quite happy with each other. Very strange and I agree quite sad that they couldn’t ignore their phones for 90mins.

That doesn't sound untrue also, but I'm guessing it's a combo effect - we have so much entertainment at our fingertips. Before, teens/young adults would be making babies for lack of anything else to do. Obv teens not having kids isn't a bad thing, but it does mean there's less of a "window" where people do have kids.

I honestly don't buy this and even if there's an element of truth - kids had nothing to do/nowhere to go so lots of sex was easier = more babies, I don't think that a) that's the main reason for the decline in birthrates (ie yes, teenage pregnancies might be down, but I don't think this is driving significant overall declining rates. I remember some research about 10 years ago that compared what people THINK is happening vs what is actually happening and one of the areas they looked at was teenage pregnancy. Perception was thtat it was much much higher than it actually was)

And b), I very much doubt that teenagers are on their phones instead of having sex = less babies. It's far more likely that campaigns, including via social media, to educate teenagers on safe sex etc, alongside changing attitudes to ensuring contraception is available (remember when parents supporting and helping their teenagers to access contraception was nowhere near as routine as it is now?), is driving lower teenage pregnancy rates.

I think there is actually research to suggest that teenagers are having less sex, though not from the UK -- US statistics suggest it's the case there, for one thing.

There's a biannual survey called something like the Youth Risk Behaviour Survey which has operated every two years since the start of the 90s, and asks questions about sex, protected sex, bullying, firearms, wearing bike helmets, bullying etc. In 1991, 54% of all high school students surveyed reported having had sex (and it went up to 67% by the time they were in their final year). In 2021, that had gone down to 30% of high school students reporting having ever had sex.

Anecdotally (I'm an academic living in the city centre of small city with two universities), I've seen a significant decline in students drinking, and certainly the cost and scarcity of accommodation in the city means far more of them live with their parents at a distance and commute daily by car, which significantly limits their social lives.

Oh, I agree - that was sort of the point I was making about teenage pregnancies not being as prevalent AND about them decling. I just don't agree that they're having less sex because they're too busy scrolling on their phones!

Just want to add here that my partner and I went out over the summer and saw a young family in the park.

Both parents were talking to their toddler, they had brought toys with them and wee taking it in turns to play.

They were narrating the child's activity eg, "Oh you've chosen the blue train. Good choice. Where is the blue train going? Oh are you taking it to see mummy? Is mummy going on a journey? Is she getting on the train?" etc.

What struck us most was that the child in question was around the same age as the one we'd seen being ignored in the pub (i mentioned previously) and yet one was growing up in an engaging, language rich environment and interacting with both parents and the other wasn't experiencing any of that.

It was just really sad especially as I'm a teacher and we are increasingly seeing the developmental gaps between children who have these very different early life experiences.

It's not because they're making an active choice to scroll rather than have sex but rather they have fewer opportunities to meet people in real life due to reduced real life interactions, reduced confidence in social situations and conducting most of their social interactions online.

You might sometimes see my family (2 adults two late teens) scrolling phones in a restaurant but this will be because we've literally spent hours talking to one another non stop while walking up and down hills and the meal is a rest stop for lunch or the end of the day when we all need 20 minutes to zone out and rest. In the olden days we'd carry books for this purpose but now read on phones to save weight.

Outside of this context, believe me nobody in our family ever shuts up, but you wouldn't know that from one tiny snapshot.

Tbf, I would assume that was more likely to be the case with older teens. Especially, as, if you've been walking up and down hills you're probably dressed for it.

It does concern me to see young childen doing that, though.

My childen just missed the screen thing by a couple of years - late and early 20s but we always took a little backpack to restaurants with things to keep them occupied and we talked to them.

I know a lot of young families still do that because I see them but a concerning number don't.

But how are children going to learn social skills/how to behave when out, if they are always glued to a phone/tablet? Same when you go shopping.