A couple of months ago I was invited to a 40th birthday party for a friend of mine at a local bar. I’m not much of a party goer so I never RSVP’d to the event. I’m the kind of person that is 100% in if I RSVP and I wasn’t sure I really wanted to commit to going so I didn’t respond.At the last minute I decided to go.
When I arrived I felt like I was attending a “texting party”. What is a texting party, you might ask? According to the Urban Dictionary it’s a social gathering in which people text those that are not at the party more than they socialize with others in the room.
The party wasn’t officially labeled a “texting party”. It’s not like I got an invitation that read: You’re invited to Brad’s 40th Birthday Party where there will be only texting and no socializing… But as I looked around the room I began to wonder why any of these iPhone, Droid and Blackberry using people even bothered to show up if all they were going to do was text other people.
But more importantly, I wondered why this type of behavior has become so socially acceptable? Why would people attend a party and text those that were not there rather than talk to people that were there?
Quite honestly, I wanted nothing more than to be at home in bed… (sorry Brad…really it was a great party, once everyone warmed up and stopped texting!)
While I was standing by the bar waiting to finish my conversation with a friend (who, by the way, had stopped in the middle of our conversation to read and send a text to someone who wasn’t at the party)I started thinking, what would happen if I had shown up to the party with a mini DVD player, put on my pajamas and started watching a movie? It would have been just as inappropriate as what the texters were doing, right? To me nothing says “I don’t want to be here” more than someone that is texting while in my presence. I recently went on a date with someone who was texting through some of it and it pissed me off!
I can understand a text here and there, but to carry on a complete conversation with one person while in the presence of another is just plain rude! I really hate it when I see groups of people incessantly clicking away on those little itty bitty keyboards like a bunch of journalists struggling to get that hot story in before the paper goes to press at midnight.
The funny thing is that had the recipients of these texts actually been in the same room as the people who were texting them, they would probably be texting other people entirely…
Think about it…it’s a viscious cycle that seems never ending!
This is totally a pet peeve of mine! It drives me absolutely crazy! Sometimes I think that the more technologically advanced we become, the less manners we have. No one gives anyone their undivided attention anymore and it's kind of sad.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me crazy... but then I still have the old phone that required me to hit each button one-three times to spell things... maybe if I got a new phone...
ReplyDelete