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Comment by Swizec | Hacker News Reader

Ever since I turned off notifications on my phone, I've been noticing this more and more.

The worst part is when my girlfriend (or anyone really) asks me a question, then starts staring at their phone before I even begin answering. I'd understand if I was boring and they didn't want to listen to me drone, but they don't even give me a chance to begin to be boring.

Maybe I'm just fundamentally boring. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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The worst part is when my girlfriend (or anyone really) asks me a question, then starts staring at their phone before I even begin answering.

I'm starting to wonder if staring at your phone isn't just becoming the default. I'm currently consulting at a large multi-national company in the Seattle area. I almost took a picture as I was walking down the hallway and saw everyone one of the six people walking toward me while looking at their phones (no, the irony of pulling out my phone to take a picture of people using their phones is not lost on me). It's like I woke up in a fucking zombie movie. And it's not just that one incident, I dodge phone zombies in the hall on a daily basis. I watched one guy run into a support column while staring at his phone, hit it hard enough to kind of spin him around. He never even looked up.

Maybe it's just where I'm at, maybe it's this area of the country, or maybe it's everywhere, I don't know. I'm just starting to feel like Wesley Crusher in that ST:TNG episode with the head-worn video game the whole ship got sucked into.

You just reminded me of this ZH article on the Zombification of Millennials I read the other day

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-21/zombification-ameri...

I am hoping there will be a luddite type revolt against this trend of phones.

It's regional. I spent a few months in southern Spain last year. Here's a representative anecdote: Mixed group of fifteen people in their 30's out to a slow lunch on a Sunday. No one looks at their phone for an hour. Then I catch one woman peek at her phone under the table. After a few seconds her friend taps her arm and she puts the phone away for the remainder of the gathering.

My theory: American culture is individualistic and not heavily tradition based. This allows new tech, habits, rituals, and patterns of living to catch on quickly. This is both a good and a bad thing.

Data point: in Brazil I'm perceiving just the same as what you're describing in America.

US South here: A popular chain started putting to-go boxes on tables at lunch. If your whole table drops their phones in the box when you sit down, your table gets free dessert.

I've noticed just the presence of the game - even if my table doesn't play - greatly reduces screen time and habitual notification checks.

A variation of this game is for everyone at the table to stack their phones in a pile. The first one to pull his phone has to pay the bill.

I've seen a few people hit lamp posts while staring at their phone already. Sometimes somebody that died by getting in front of a car while looking at the phone makes news here too.

And yep, I know people that would ask a person something, and resort to the phone before the other person starts to answer.

But most people I see are not staring at a phone. This may be regional variance.

I will never understand folks who die by texting while they're driving. I can't even pick mine up. My friends and family know full well that if they need to contact me, and I'm driving, they need to ring more than once which signals me to pull over and answer.

I'm terrified of losing track of the road around me. But maybe that's the difference; I'm not confident enough as a driver (despite having done it for 13 years now) to trust my autopilot while my brain checks out to hold some other conversation.

Staring at your phone is definitely a modern reflex. I tried putting it out of reach when I'm doing something else (thanks to this: http://www.raptitude.com/2016/03/4-absurdly-easy-things/) and noticed myself trying to reach for it anyway. Scary.

Do they ignore you once you start talking? If their attention is going to slack at some point, the best time for that is probably while you're thinking silently.

They switch back to me once I start talking. It's usually "Huh?" and I have to repeat the first 5 to 10 words.

Ever noticed how a lot of young people say a long "Sooooo" before they start speaking? This is why. It's the handshake algorithm.

It's also annoying.

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