If you are driving and reading this, put it down and look up. read it later.
If you are walking and reading this, put it down and look up, read it later.
If you are standing still blocking an elevator or escalator, look up and read it later.
if you are in a meeting and the topic is not how smart phones and tablets are a distraction, put it down and look up, and pay attention to the meeting.
So what is my point? smart phone related injuries to pedestrians have soared over the past few years due to the pedestrian walking into something, tripping, or getting hit by a car.
There were 1.3 million crashes in 2014 that were caused by texting. The NSC found that cell phones are a factor in 27% of all car crashes and that stat has grown for 3 straight years.While most States have banned texting while driving, people still do it.
When you are not paying attention to the elevator or escalator because you are busy on your smart phone, you are impeding others from getting to their destination. Just like you do not like it when others are slow or blocking you, guess what? You might be doing it too.
When you are in a meeting with co-workers and you are sending a text and not paying attention to the meeting, it is highly disrespectful of everyone else's time. What is even worse (the one I hate the most) is when we are paying a contractor/consultant and are in a meeting and they are texting away. For me, they do not get renewed.
We have all seen it when we are out for dinner a couple that looks like they are on a date are spending all their time texting on their own phones. They should be spending time together. There are even some cases of divorce where the cause was too much tablet/smart phone interference.
Smart Phones are a great technological advancement, I have one, my wife has one and my 12 year old daughter has one. All 5 member of my family all have tablets as well. What we are teaching them is to put the phone or tablet down and look up. There is a whole world out there that is not on your screen. Enjoy it. Try going out for lunch or dinner or a date and leave the phone behind? Try "roughing it" and go a weekend without a cell phone or tablet. Can you live a couple of days without it? Guess what, when I tried it the world did not end and I actually enjoyed it. I was no longer tethered to the electronic world, and I had a lot of fun!
So by all means use your smart phone, after all it is a tool. But just remember to Look Up! you might save yourself from injury and/or embarrassment and you can still experience the rest of the world. Better yet, go out for lunch and leave the phone back on your desk and watch all those that are walking into things because they concentrated too much on their phone and did not look up. I did that today. In 5 minutes I counted 15 people walking into posts, other people, and a garbage can because they were too busy texting.
BTW: the person who hit the garbage can, dropped their phone into it. Yuck!