[lotharbot]

If it isn't rude, why are so many people offended by it?

People invented the "everyone's phone goes in a stack in the middle of the table, and if you touch it you pick up the check" custom because they find it so rude that people check their phones during dinner conversation.

When you're with someone, pay attention to them. Sure, if there's a long break in the conversation and neither of you has anything to say, maybe you can check your phone. But don't start checking it during an ongoing conversation; that's rude. That's a way of telling the person you're talking to that they're less important than the random minutia of facebook, texts asking if you're up for COD, the latest score in the football game, etc.

There are obvious exceptions. If mom's in the hospital due to a heart attack, or your best friend is stranded in the flood zone and you don't know if he's made it onto a helicopter yet, it's OK to signal to the people you're having a casual conversation with "hey, this is important enough that I'm willing to cut you off mid-sentence to keep up on it."

[stephengillie]

>If it isn't rude, why are so many people offended by it?

Because they're old and trying to apply old customs to new situations, instead of adopting new customs. No, not every single bit of dinner conversation will be riveting, and it's natural for our attentions to wander. So we alt-tab from the conversation into other sites, sometimes bringing something new into the conversation. This act is also a highly effective yet passive body-language signalling technique -- it allows us to more definitively signal our disinterest in the topic-at-hand without interrupting the speaker or others listening, and if everyone is on their phones it tells the speaker to change topic or let someone else speak.

[noblethrasher]

I had a whole bunch of stuff that I typed but then I realized it all comes down to this: You're demanding that everyone be entertaining but forgetting that listening is a form of entertainment too.

So, please don't do what you're advocating, humans have not fundamentally changed; you're going to hurt people.

...

Also, dismissing things because they're old is going to ill-serve you, especially as a technologist.

[stephengillie]

I don't see the harm in reading a newspaper or staring out the window during table conversation, and I don't see the distinction between those and fb or a phone game or image site. If it hurts people, then those people need to toughen up.

Dismissing things because they're no longer relevant has served me quite well as a technologist.

[lotharbot]

> "they're old and trying to apply old customs to new situations"

I doubt it was seniors who came up with the phone-stack, and it's definitely not seniors who have spread the idea on social media. I see it spread by 20-somethings and even teens who are sick of people being rude by ignoring them.

It might be different if it was used to signal disinterest, when someone is just droning on and on. But people dive into facebook/texts/whatever on their phones even when they're interested in the conversation, and even when the person speaking has barely started. It's like a compulsion. A rude compulsion.