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Why People Check their Tech at the Wrong Times (and the Simple Trick to Stop It)Nir Eyal – Mar 8, 2016Chances are you’ve experienced the following: You’re with a small group of friends at a nice restaurant. Everyone is enjoying the food and conversation when someone decides to take out his phone — not for an urgent call, but to check email, Instagram, and Facebook.Maybe you’ve witnessed this behavior and found it worrying. So what do you do? Do you sit idly by, thinking disparaging thoughts? Or do you call out the offender?For years, I accepted these situations as a sign of the times. Sherry Turkle, an author and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, diagnosed the situation succinctly: these days, “we expect more from technology and less from each other.”I used to do nothing in the face of indiscriminate gadget use. Now, I’ve come to believe that doing nothing is no longer OK. Staying silent about bad technology habits is making things worse for all of us.Paul Graham, the famed Silicon Valley investor, has observed that societies tend to develop defenses against new harmful behaviors. He uses the example of cigarette smoking: smoking in public became taboo over the span of just one generation after social conventions changed. Legal restrictions played a part, but a change in the perception of smokers — from cultured to crude — was key. Similarly, the remedy to gadget indiscretion may be developing new norms that make it socially undesirable to check one’s phone in the company of others.Like cigarettes, our personal technology use can become a bad habit. People enter a zone when they use their gadgets. “Most people I know have problems with Internet addiction,” Graham wrote in 2010. But how do we tackle the problem of bad mobile manners?At WorkOne solution is to take an explicit approach. At almost every corporate meeting I attend, someone (typically the highest-paid person in the room) starts using his or her personal technology. The behavior is toxic in many ways: it sends a message to everyone in the room that gadget time is more important than their time; it distracts people who assume the boss is sending work their way; and, perhaps worst of all, it prevents the person using the device from participating in the discussion, which means the meeting wasn’t worth having in the first place.The best way to prevent this waste of time is for someone senior to mandate a “no-screen meeting.” In my experience conducting hundreds of workshops, the discussions declared device-free are by far more productive. Among FriendsIn other situations, being explicit isn’t as easy. Take the dinner-party scene described earlier. Unlike in a corporate setting, no one at a dinner is the boss, so no one has the inherent right to enforce a device-free meal. For a while, “phone stacking” — in which people put their phones in the center of the table, and the person who first reached for his phone during the meal had to pay for everyone — was sort of a thing, but it never took off, because the whole exercise felt punitive and patronizing. Most people already understand that using their gadgets in an intimate social setting is rude. But there’s always that one person who doesn’t.So what’s the best way to get the transgressor off the phone? Embarrassing him in front of others isn’t a good idea, assuming you want to stay friends. A more subtle tactic is required. The goal is to snap the offender out of the phone zone, and to give him two options: either excuse himself to attend to whatever crisis is happening, or put away the tech. Over time, I’ve realized that there’s one way to effectively call someone out while keeping things cordial: Ask a question.Posing a direct question does the person a favor by pulling him back while sending a clear message. The technique works like a charm. For one, the unexpected question elicits an entertaining reaction — sort of like what happens when you hold someone’s nose when he’s falling asleep. He gasps and sputters, but in this case it’s not your fault, because you, as questioner, can play dumb. “Oh, sorry, were you on your phone? Is everything O.K.?” If there really is an emergency, the person can excuse himself, but more often than not, he’ll tuck it back into his pocket and start enjoying the night.Though personal technology clearly isn’t tobacco, it’s important we know that our devices are also designed to keep us hooked. By better understanding the psychology behind our technology, we can put it in its place.Adapted from: : ricardobarroselt. ................
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