Your Phone is Making You Rude
Leandra recently emailed me a Daily Beast article that began with the quote, “I’m sitting on a toilet talking to you right now.” What followed was not, as the above image might suggest, that a phone falls to its watery death. Rather, the toilet-talker and NY Times Best-Selling author Joseph Grenny was making a joke to underline his point about how rude we’ve all become on our phones.
I’m absolutely guilty of iPhone addiction. Any time I’m at dinner I find it absolutely impossible to not check my screen, and just last night a friend getting ready for a date wrote me to ensure that I’d be texting her throughout.
“You can’t check your phone!” I hypocritically reminded her, but I knew all too well the fear of entering a first date without your digital security blanket.
According to the article, these “Electronic Displays of Insensitivity,” or EDIs, have a legitimate damaging effect on relationships. In a study led by Grenny where 2,025 people were involved, 89 percent reported damaged relationships due to friends and family ignoring them for technology. For one in four, that’s led to a serious fight.
It seems that each of us knows when it is and isn’t appropriate to use our phones. Dinner: no. During/mid/post hook-up: no. Family time: no. An intimate hang out: no.
It’s just that — similar to the days of sneaking texts fairly blatantly under our backpacks in class — no one seems to adhere to the rules. But if it really is having a legitimate affect on our relationships that matter, maybe it’s time to flush our phones down the toilet (proverbially!!) in the presence of those loved ones who we’d like to keep around.
But what about you? Any of this ringing true?
And sorry for the rhyme, but why is it so hard to do?