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Opinion We are more concerned with beeps from our phone than the person in front of us

We’re becoming increasingly disconnected from our immediate environment and from the people around us due to the constant use of mobile phones.

IF YOU GO into any Irish restaurant, pub or coffee shop you’ll see groups of people sitting together in complete silence – sometimes an almost meditative atmosphere prevails.

There is no talking and no eye contact. This is not some new wave of Trappist Monks or a new fashion in meditation or yoga. This is phubbing.

Phubbing‘ was recently considered as an addition to the Oxford English Dictionary. It means to ignore the company you are in while you use your phone. It would be the most timely addition to the OED in years, given how widespread the practice is. Phubbing is also the single most annoying, rude and perverse activity a person can engage in.

It beggars belief that a person or group of persons would gather together in a social environment, and then spend the majority of the time ignoring each other.

What exactly is the point of going to a coffee shop or restaurant if you are going to sit there with your head bowed over your phone like a praying monk, an activity you presumably do at home?

Are phones destroying our social skills?

Phubbing is not only illogical, it’s rude. You have made an arrangement to meet someone or a group, with the express intention of spending time with them, talking to them and generally paying attention to them. Yet, once you are together, one or all of you spends at least some of the time looking at a screen, completely shutting out everyone else.

It is the equivalent of wearing a sign saying “I have no interest in whoever I am with”. If you find the company so boring that you would rather spend the time checking your Facebook or texting someone else, why have you turned up in the first place?

Even more ridiculous is seeing too people who are obviously supposed to be on a date with their noses in their phones over a romantic dinner or drink. If this is the start of the relationship, you can only wonder what things will be like when they move in together.

Is romance so utterly dead that what passes for acceptable behaviour with someone you like is to ignore them utterly in favour of your smartphone? Perhaps our parents are correct when they say that the use of technology is destroying social skills and relations.

Reality bites 

The modern relationship with mobile phones appears to have taken over all other aspects of a person’s life. No matter what situation or company they are in, people cannot be parted from or even dissuaded from checking their mobile phones. Any beep or buzz instantly takes priority. Conversation, company and basic good manners come a distant second to junk emails and Instagram.

For years, those who have raised concerns about the effects of technology on human interaction have been dismissed as Luddites, merchants of doom and general technophobes. Yet if you look around any given coffee shop or bar in Dublin, chances are you will see more than half of people on their phones. At a lot of tables, every single person will be glued to a screen, oblivious to everyone else.

This is not a healthy development in human relationships. We are social animals, we thrive on basic things like eye contact, verbal face to face communication and warm, direct relations.

No matter what various tech gurus tell us, virtual reality can never substitute for real interactions. It is not healthy for people to spend all their times staring at screens.

Communication cannot be reduced to the bare bones of information in text or visual format. Human interaction requires all the nuances of tone, facial expression, body language and the simple experience of being in the same physical space as another person.

Time to re-evaluate 

Mobile phones mean that people spend massive amounts of time on the internet, on social media or news websites or anywhere but where they actually are. Through mobile phones we become disconnected from our immediate environment, and – even more importantly – from the people around us.

It is perhaps time for us to re-evaluate our relationship with technology, how much time we spend using it and more importantly where and when we use it.

I also think it is also time we re-evaluated our relationships with each other. If society has reached the point where attending to our phones is more important than attending to each other, then perhaps we could all do with developing some technophobia.

Niall McGlynn is a graduate in history and science from Trinity College Dublin. He has written articles on Irish and global affairs for Trinity News, and blogs on both with his brothers at http://lazyhermes.blogspot.ie/ and tweets at @NiallMcGlynn1.

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    Mute Bernard A Kavanagh
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    Mar 14th 2022, 1:03 PM

    And this all happened under FG FF when in power for the last 99 years! They have morally destroyed this country. But the Irish have short memories and keep voting them back into POWER!

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    Mute Mike Dunne
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    Mar 14th 2022, 2:32 PM

    @Bernard A Kavanagh: There isn’t much to choose from. Sinn Fein have been supporting the coalition since day one. All very depressing.

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    Mute Bernard A Kavanagh
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    Mar 14th 2022, 3:02 PM

    @Mike Dunne: That’s a poor argument.

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    Mute Just Some Guy
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    Mar 14th 2022, 3:47 PM

    @Bernard A Kavanagh:

    Fine Gael haven’t been in Government for 99 years. Fianna Fail bankrupted this country when we needed a bailout. Also these illegal adoptions happened when Fianna Fail were in charge. Society allowed this to happen

    Sinn Fein are angels are they? David Cullinane who shouted up the Ira when he got elected.

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    Mute Bernard A Kavanagh
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    Mar 14th 2022, 5:42 PM

    @Just Some Guy: I never said FG have been in power for 99 years. I said FG and FF have been in power for 99 years.

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    Mute David Dineen
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    Mar 14th 2022, 1:48 PM

    When i went to find my brother i discovered alot, so much so the church were taking me to court, the amount of illegal adoptions are huge, wait till they discover the thousands sent away…

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    Mute Aidan Bergin
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    Mar 14th 2022, 1:55 PM

    @David Dineen: taking you to court for what?

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    Mute John Long
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    Mar 14th 2022, 1:59 PM

    €3000 isn’t a fraction for these people deserve.

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    Mute Olive Whyte
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    Mar 14th 2022, 2:06 PM

    Is there a few zeros missing on that figure??. €3,000 is an insult.

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    Mute Darren Byrne
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    Mar 14th 2022, 3:13 PM

    @Olive Whyte: didn’t read the article then, no. Quelle surprise. The 3000 is to cover the cost of initial DNA tests and legal consultation, it’s not compensation.

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    Mute Olive Whyte
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    Mar 14th 2022, 3:38 PM

    @Darren Byrne: did I mention the word compensation??? No need to be rude to a complete stranger.

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    Mute Denis Ryan
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    Mar 14th 2022, 4:34 PM

    @Olive Whyte: He is only being rude to someone who didn’t read the article but needed to do some virtue signaling. You assumed the €3000 was compensation hence the line about missing zeros.

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    Mute Jane Osman
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    Mar 14th 2022, 4:42 PM

    @Denis Ryan: No she didn’t, read it again (it’s very, very short)

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    Mute Denis Ryan
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    Mar 14th 2022, 4:46 PM

    @Jane Osman: very good Jane, I said she assumed and now she is backtracking at a rate of knots.

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    Mute joe oneill
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    Mar 14th 2022, 1:36 PM

    Magdalene laundries,mother and baby homes,illegal adoption’s….the lies and cover ups continue,the UN Commission
    On Civil Rights needs to come in and do a no holes barred investigation in order for folks to get the proper justice and compensation that they deserve.If people in authority, government don’t want to cooperate jail them.

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    Mute Stephen Carslake
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    Mar 14th 2022, 3:01 PM

    It is very hard to believe that the people in ireland vote these politiicans in every 5 years or so to represent us the people and once they get in all they do is turn their backs on the very people who put them in power for at least four and a half yeats.
    Time to wake up and stop voting the same 2 parties in every year and this €3000 euro offer is for expenses not even for the suffering.
    The only ones suffering now is the voters just ask where is our government now ? ALL ON JUNKET TRIPS at our expense country is a 3rd world country again thanks to the 2 parties forever voted in.

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    Mute Aidan Dorney
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    Mar 14th 2022, 3:14 PM

    @Stephen Carslake: I agree with you, Stephen. May I say Stephen manning from integrity Ireland has coined the perfect name for them. He calls them the diabolical’s

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    Mute Roger Bond
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    Mar 14th 2022, 7:12 PM

    @Stephen Carslake: If the other party is going to give out money for everything that happened many decades ago then we will be bankrupt again.
    People need to know that attitudes were different then in every country in the world.
    We are unique in always looking back and our compensation culture is unique too.

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    Mute John Kavanagh
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    Mar 14th 2022, 2:25 PM

    I always thought knowing who you are is priceless.. but obviously it’s only worth 3k

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    Mute Jane Osman
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    Mar 14th 2022, 4:44 PM

    @John Kavanagh: Well said friend!

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    Mute Nichola Corcoran
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    Mar 14th 2022, 2:30 PM

    Wow 3,000 euro compensation for being sold at birth. They deserve so much more, shame on this government if they think that is appropriate.

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    Mute Disco Inferno
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    Mar 14th 2022, 6:07 PM

    @Nichola Corcoran: it’s not compensation, read the article

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    Mute Marg FitzGerald
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    Mar 14th 2022, 7:07 PM

    @Nichola Corcoran: it’s not compensation

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    Mute Ciaran Dunne
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    Mar 14th 2022, 3:58 PM

    What about a criminal prosecution in every proven case of fraud against St Patrick’s Guild . Or is the €3000 hush money ?

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    Mute Aidan Dorney
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    Mar 14th 2022, 2:32 PM

    3k is a joke & the state should be held to account 3k? Just dealt with a gentleman looking up his records for his wife for health reasons. If the entries were incorrect well they were up the river without a paddle to put it nicely. 3k does not cut it.

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    Mute Gerrard
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    Mar 14th 2022, 5:12 PM

    Give them all 1 million each sure we have loads of money to hand out

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    Mute Roger Bond
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    Mar 14th 2022, 7:05 PM

    Compensation should be sought from the families who forced these adoptions on the mother because the families were not brave enough to accept a child from an unmarried mother.

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    Mute Mike Dunne
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    Mar 14th 2022, 2:33 PM

    This sounds like a bad Irish joke, except it’s not funny for those directly involved.

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    Mute Ciaran Dunne
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    Mar 14th 2022, 8:30 PM

    God forgive the poor eejit that though this €3000 was an appeasement for their scandalous treatment by this government!

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