智能手机需智斗

智能手机无时不在，无处不在。餐桌旁边，有人目不转睛盯着手机；公共场所，有人打起电话无所顾忌；即使面对面谈话，也难免对方一头扎进手机，把你晾在一旁。时代如此，不管是因自己的冒犯心生愧疚，还是对他人的干扰不胜其烦，都来学学这几个智斗手机的妙招吧！

A recent study of dining habits reveals how far standards have slipped. The majority of Britons no longer eat together as a family， but of those who do four out of ten can’t see anything wrong with bringing their laptops， iPads and smartphones to the table and carrying on engaging with them.

Indeed， the new social savagery1） is everywhere， and not just at the dining table. Just step into the street and the communal atmosphere has gone. Most pedestrians are in their private bubbles， either speaking on their mobiles or wearing headsets—perhaps so they don’t have to listen to others speaking on theirs.

At parties—originally designed to promote friendship and romance—the direct experience is being intercepted by smartphone as partygoers are too busy announcing their presences at the event and checking on the progress and whereabouts of their peers. In the age of perma—2） provisional arrangements， their friends are bleeping in to say they have decided that this is the best party on offer and they are on their way， but “could you text me the address again？”

In restaurants， theatres， libraries， school speech days3）， at home en famille4）， people are distracted by a brightly—lit device that seems to hold the promise of something better.

It is a generational thing， of course. The worst offenders are teenagers—in terms of the group who are the most distracted because this is the generation who never knew life when it was “real.” They live in the continuous future. They have no experience of subtlety， nuance5） or considered responses—only of instant， illiterate and ill—considered ones. The gratification teens crave is not the warm smile of affection or the approving comment from another human， but the sense of achievement they gain from electronic validation. Emails， texts and updates pinging6） in reassure them they are alive and popular and abreast of7） rolling social news.

No wonder they are addicted to the source of this reassurance. Counsellors say it is very hard for a teenager to get through a 50—minute session without begging to break off to check their messages.

Twentysomethings are less electronically enslaved—but even the best mannered among them feel they must be permanently available because of the instant nature of modern social life. Thirty—， forty— and fiftysomethings can still remember a time when it was considered rude to stop talking to one person and turn away to address someone else.