You really hear it a lot these days, things like:

"Get off your phone and talk to your family!"

"What's so important that you've got to be glued to your phone?"

"People are so shallow, no one wants face to face communication anymore!"

It's weird to think that 20 or so years ago, this couldn't have been an issue because we didn't even have the technology for smartphones. Is it really an issue though, for people to be on their phones? Is it really causing issues between how people interact with each other?

It's a hard question to get a direct answer for. You could argue that phones do cause issues, of course. People who are on their phones while they're driving obviously need to put their phones down, for example. People who are on their phones while driving have been seen time and time again getting into wrecks and hurting themselves as well as other drivers. Then you have people who are on their phones while they're checking out at a supermarket or other area. Does that hurt anyone? No, but wow is it rude. You need to pay attention to the person who's checking your stuff out so you can pay quickly and not hold other customers up. In general, it's seen that phones can be a distraction in a lot of situations.

On the other hand, you can also say that phones aren't causing a distraction and it's just the latest technology that people want to jump on and say is terrible for society. If you look throughout history, people have been making things like phones for a long time, like the book or the newspaper or the internet. Stories or news are put in them, and you can read them, and take them with you, and if you don't feel like talking to someone, you can sit there and read them instead Maybe when you see someone glued to a phone, they're reading the latest piece of big news that happened across the country and they can see new information as it comes in, which is pretty important. Maybe they're texting a relative or a friend they rarely get to see. Maybe they just don't feel like talking, which isn't a terrible thing–– not everyone is a social butterfly that can carry a great conversation.

I don't think the interaction between people has been damaged much because of smartphones. Changed? Of course. People interact differently when any new form of communication becomes mainstream, but this doesn't necessarily mean that it's hurting how people interact with each other. We can talk to people instantaneously now, no matter how far away they are. You can talk to many different people all at once just as fast.

So, I don't think it's hurting communication, it's actually making it faster and easier. People still tend to talk to each face to face just fine. If someone's ignoring you to be on their phone, they might just not feel like talking, so don't blame the technology.