Maybe you’re like us. We are the people who are on our smartphones just about all of the time, even if we’re with a companion. We know it annoys a lot of people, but we do it anyway. Why?
Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have researched why companions in restaurants pull out their smartphones, and the way this impacts restaurant experiences. Three chief reasons they identified are: to delay or pause a dialog (interaction suspension); to escape a dialog (deliberately shielding interaction); and also to share something with others (accessing shareables).
However, what does that actually mean?
The smartphone is the world’s most ubiquitous personal tech gizmo. The huge majority of adults have one.
“This makes the smartphone important, both socially and sociologically,” says postdoctoral fellow and first author Ida Marie Henriksen.
She’s affiliated with NTNU’s Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, and has written an article with Professor Aksel Tjora and PhD candidate Marianne Skaar in the Department of Sociology and Political Science.
Using smartphones is linked to so many of our activities, both things we do independently and things we do with a companion. We search for tempting restaurants online, pay the bus ticket to a restaurant with it, invite friends to come join us use the phone to recognize the songs that the restaurant is playing, and lots of other things.
Smartphones give us better chances to be social. But they also empower us to distance ourselves from companions.
The researchers visited 52 individuals at restaurants in Trondheim, and interviewed them in depth in their “We focused exclusively on people who seemed to know each other from before and who met to socialize. In addition, we observed 108 other meetings at a distance, kind of like research flies on the wall,” says Skaar.
“We focused exclusively on people who seemed to know each other from Before and who met to socialize. Additionally, we observed 108 other meetings at a space, kind of like research flies on the wall,” says Skaar.
By design, restaurants are a place where you can be especially societal with companions. However, some people today use it rather as a place to hide away with a fantastic drink for some time and maintain a suitable distance from people, or as a workplace, rather with a laptop or tablet computer in addition to the ubiquitous smartphone.
What exactly do the three chief types of smartphone use involve?
Delaying interaction is what occurs when we disrupt a conversation with our restaurant companion to look at an email, a smartphone conversation, an image on Snap or simply to ensure we have not missed anything on social media the last few minutes.
This is also called “phubbing” (in phone + snubbing), when the smartphone gets your attention rather than the companion you’re with.
How this behavior is perceived depends on how the conversation companions know the situation. You can get upset about it and watch it as impolite. But that’s not always the case.
“On the one hand, how you suspend your interaction plays a role. If you explain to the person you’re with why you have to postpone your physical interaction, it’s perceived as more polite than if you just disappear and start “phubbing,” that is, phoning someone else and ignoring the person who’s physically present. At the same time, some people may appreciate a short break from a longer conversation, and using the phone can also be a natural, interwoven part of the social interaction that takes place in the café,” says Tjora
Deliberately protecting interaction is a slightly different, more subtle way of utilizing the smartphone “When the person you’re with gets busy on their smartphone, the other person in the social setting can pick up their smartphone to demonstrate that they’re busy too and not being involuntarily left to themselves. Or if you’re in a group, you can pick up your phone to avoid a conversation topic by signalling that you are busy. The smartphone offers a break from face-to-face social situations,” says Henriksen.
“When the person you’re with gets busy on their smartphone, the other person in the social setting can pick up their smartphone to demonstrate that they’re busy too and not being involuntarily left to themselves. Or if you’re in a group, you can pick up your phone to avoid a conversation topic by signalling that you are busy. The smartphone offers a break from face-to-face social situations,” says Henriksen.
Some of us consider this a step farther by keeping our smartphone in silent mode. Then we can pretend we’ve obtained an important message or dialog, and that we have to hurry to answer it, possibly even leaving the companion we’re sitting with.
You can escape a great deal of boring meetings this manner. Nonetheless, it isn’t just pleasant.
Content sharing is that the more pleasant or useful sharing facet of using smartphone and can occasionally be nearly the opposite of taking a rest from interacting.
“When you take a selfie together, or show pictures of your new girlfriend or kids, or of the house you want to bid on, or the map of where you were on holiday, you’re sharing content,” says Tjora.
Perhaps You have an email, an SMS or a document that you wish to show your companion. That belongs in this category, also. Or if you disagree about what that actor or artist’s name has been, and a fast web search can tell you which one of you had been appropriate.
Content sharing in a café setting often raises new conversation themes and can enrich the interaction. Sharing is probably also the most environmentally accepted use of smartphones.
Of course, there are overlapping and grey areas also.
“For example, a mutual understanding can allow those who are meeting to take pictures of the coffee cup at the very beginning of the conversation and perhaps share the picture on social media for uninterested acquaintances. But then they put away their phones, either until a message appears, or perhaps even until the physical meeting comes to an end. If you go to a café to be social, the person with you in real life is the focus,” says Henriksen.
Sometimes there are also scenarios where companions jointly agree to check this and that on their own phones for a brief while, but put them away and concentrate on each other.
Others use their smartphone while the companion is ordering in the counter or visiting the toilet, simply to have something to do while the other person is off. That is almost like a kind of dependence, where we constantly have to be doing a thing and fill in all of the breaks. The telephone is immediately available, willing and able to satisfy this aversion to silence.
The smartphone is a tool for signalling curiosity or distance, however it can also enrich conversations and be used to discuss experiences with different people than just people that are physically present.
“The study dispels the myth that everyone is constantly staring at their screens no matter the occasion, and shows that a form of courtesy with the phone has been established, at least in situations where the social aspect is prioritized,” says Tjora.
“Whatever the reasons, one thing seems certain: smartphones have changed how we behave socially, for better or for worse. But maybe socializing has just become different in a way we need to become conscious of.
Related Journal Article: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/10/4/78