I just read about this new tradition of asking guests who come to one’s place for a party to put their cell phones and handheld devices into a basket by the door before they can proceed to the party proper.
Is this an urban myth or do people with this degree of obnoxiousness actually exist? And if they do, who on Earth comes to their parties?
I would go to that party! I’d hope there’s be an exemption for parents leaving a kid with a sitter or medical professionals on call, but beyond that, hellz yeah! A social gathering where everyone is engaged with other human beings, not retreating to a device during lulls, not taking pictures of food, not snark only narrating the event on Twitter…I’m there.
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All of the benefits of this approach are outweighed by the blatant disrespect these hosts have for their guests. Would you really allow people to confiscate your belongings as if you were a small child in need of disciplining??
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A lot would depend on the tone of the stipulation. If it’s an officious, “we know better than you and so please hand over your phone,” it would probably send me straight back home, sure (unless of course it’s a party chez the Obamas…). But a “would you mind humoring us with this one? We’d really love it if you’d help us make this a totally screen-free party” would be a request I’d go along with.
Or maybe I’m just so irritated by fake-party invitations (“help chip in so I can have a fabulous meal at a restaurant of my choice for my birthday!” or “I give you a glass of wine and you buy this crap I’m selling!”) that I’m overly receptive to anything that could be interpreted as a genuine desire to interact sociably.
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I can’t honestly say I’ve been to a party where phones have been a problem. If the people at the party like each other, they will talk to each other.
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It sounds like folklore (like key parties) or one person might have. On the other hand…. I can totally understand the motivation behind it. A couple of months ago i was passing through a park on an unseasonably beautiful day and I saw a bench area with a half dozen teenagers (male and female), but instead of the usual shenanigans or loitering or casual obscenity laced conversation you’d expect they were all staring into their smartphones and completely ignoring each other.
Forget legal pot, smartphones are the real Soma, keeping the people happy and atomized….
I can understand the appeal for the less socially outgoing (comme moi) but what’s the use of being a social hermit in a land of social hermits?
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Well, President Obama does that, and from what I read, his parties are quite well-attended.
Rich/famous people do it because they don’t want the intimate details of their gatherings to be splashed on the front page of the National Enquirer the next day. Someone writes about this trend and now everyone wants to do this to be cool.
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Ah, so this is where this is coming from! Mystery solved, thank you.
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This would be a great idea and the thing with the phones is for real, a friend of mine attended a Thanksgiving dinner where nobody talked to each other and everyone was busy uploading pic of the food onto Instagram and checking Facebook, and this was a dinner for over twenty people :O
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But I really want to know: would you consent to having your property confiscated by people who think they have the right to control your behavior? I personally would find that deeply insulting.
When people arrive at a party (which is not at the White House) and are told to leave their phone wherever, are they really not offended?
If this happened to me, I would leave immediately and sever all relations with this host.
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I’ve certainly seen my fair share of parties that would have been improved if everyone spent the whole time eating, Instagramming and Facebooking. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that fun and engaged vs absorbed into smartphones are the only possible outcomes for a party.
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“I’ve certainly seen my fair share of parties that would have been improved if everyone spent the whole time eating, Instagramming and Facebooking.”
– So true. 🙂
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What would you do if the party were at the White House?
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People have suggested that visitors are asked to relinquish their phones at the White House parties for security reasons. This is something I can understand. But regular people who are not protected by special security forces can’t claim the same need for privacy.
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I think the clear solution is never have or go to any parties.
Having a bunch of people over who spend much of the evening with their precious phones will be no fun (and if that behavior would be an improvement on their normal behavior then why do you want them in your house?).
And, trying to confiscate people’s phones at the door is also not very appealing.
I suppose that you could try to make things so fun that people wouldn’t think of neglecting you for the sake of their phone but that sounds like more work than it’s worth.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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