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Comment by notadoc | Hacker News Reader

Engaging in social media is largely an anti-social activity.

How many times have you been in a restaurant, bar, or other public space, and noticed groups of people all staring at their phones on 'social' media, rather than engaging in the actual social situation around them? Or how many times have you been at someones house, or even in your own home, and looked to find a child, friend, partner, family member, staring at their phone, rather than engaging with the real world? How many times has that person been you, staring blindly into the screen rather than engaging with actual humans around you?

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Rarely.

Like people might check their phone if they get a message or need to respond to a spouse. But the majority of my friends, if in a bar or shop or party, rarely ever look at their phones .. unless a good several minutes go by and no one talks to them and it's a way to avoid boredom or awkwardness.

I mean people look at them when they're alone on a bus or train, but I mean before that we just looked at books or magazines. It's like a better book or magazine that's interactive.

I agree, I think people are putting too much stock in this idea that "phones and social media are killing real social interaction!"

It's definitely true that some people have issues "unplugging." One fried of mine comes to mind; I'll go get dinner with this guy and he'll stare at his iPhone grinding away at some mobile MMO or messaging other friends the entire time, while I'm left to eat my food in near silence (until he finds some hilarious image or video I absolutely need to see, at which point his phone gets thrust in my face). I can even ask the dude a question or make some remark and watch him miss it completely, only to ask "oh did you say something?" about 2 minutes later.

People like my friend need some kind of intervention for sure, but I'm not convinced that a majority of people behave like this. I'm very social and this is the only friend I can name with this sort of problem.

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