Made in Macao | Are Smartphones Affecting Social Gatherings?

Jenny Lao-Phillips

I wonder how many people have encountered the following awkward moment in our social lives. You finally found time in your busy schedule to have dinner with an equally busy friend whom you have not seen for some time, hoping to catch up. But once your friend arrived at the restaurant, she was busy chatting away on the phone about her day with her colleague. When she finally hung up the phone, you started to ask her how her life was, and she was busy texting five other people at the same time on Whatsapp, WeChat and Facebook Messages. So you sat there for over half an hour with your friend across the table, yet feeling alone, before you could finally get her attention for a moment to ask her what she wanted to order for dinner.  As soon as the order is placed, she is back on her phone.
Perhaps this case was a bit over-exaggerated, maybe not all of the above happened at the same time, but one of these unfortunate moments must have happened to most of us a few times, if not often. So what does this tell us about the effect of smartphones in our social lives? In the past, we were less busy, but contacting friends was less easy too. So, it sometimes took many hours of phone calls just to reach a few friends to make arrangements for a dinner. But without distraction, friends gathering once a month or two can enhance the quality of connection. While the ease of modern communication increases our connectivity in terms of quantity – we can talk to all our friends over one of the messaging application every day, it unfortunately decreases the quality of social relationships. Many articles discuss how smart phones have affected the efforts modern people spend on cultivating deeper relationships, but it is not modern technology that should be blamed. The problem is that we are not developed enough in social etiquette to handle the development of modern technology.
We have become so used to answering phone calls and replying to messages at once that we lost track of when we should put our phones aside. Every Sunday in the churches in Macao, church-goers have to be reminded to switch off their mobile phones or turn their devices to silent before mass in order to concentrate on the Eucharistic celebration. But when I attend mass in other places, I don’t hear this announcement. This is an action that we shouldn’t have to be reminded to do, and yet, be it in the church or at the theatre or cinemas, or at the dinner table, without reminders we would not turn off our phones, and when they come a-calling, we uncontrollably have to answer or read and reply to messages. At least, I am addicted like that. Which caused me to stop and question myself: where have my social manners gone?
Perhaps we need to be reminded that whether it is a gathering of friends, lunch with an acquaintance or just a coffee or a drink with colleagues, the people we invited or accepted the invitation to hang out with are physically present in front of us. They should be the ones we carry out a conversation with, not the friend on the other side of the phone. If we need to answer an important phone call, we should excuse ourselves. Or if we really have many calls and messages that need to be answered, when next time a friend invites us to dinner, we can honestly say: “Sorry, I have an appointment with my phone. But we can eat at the same table.” Jenny Lao-Phillips