I recently found myself thinking about how mobile phones have affected(ruined) our lives. This thought came to me when I was at work. So at work, we mostly have an hour break in between flights depending on where you are but for most points, it’s an hour break for you after a flight has taken off and then you are busy again.
I suddenly noticed that after one of the afternoon flights took off we were all busy on our mobile phones.
Most check-in starts 2 hours before the departure time of the flight so imagine how surprised I was when I made this observation. I was like ah( where is the bonding?).
For some people, they did try to talk to each other and all that but for most of us we would rather scroll through TikTok, Facebook or Facebook or we would rather chat with an online friend instead of the one sitting in front of us.
It was sad, this clearly showed me why you could spend a whole year with someone doing the same thing every day and then when something suddenly happens to him or her we realise that we didn’t know a lot about that person.
What is causing all this? This left me with this question. Are mobile phones the blessings they promised to be? Or just a curse and distraction to the so-called “newer generation”? Sincerely I found myself leaning towards the latter.
Family bonds are so important in this day and age. We all seem to be going through one or two things in life but family time gives us all a sense of belonging and love.
A dining table at home wasn’t created to have breakfast or just lunch on the table, it was an idea which meant we could have time to bond while we ate at the dining table.
Yes, I know they say eating and talking at the dining table is a bad habit but wouldn’t you rather talk and have a deep conversation with your partner or parents than be on the mobile phone scrolling through TikTok?
The mobile phone has caused us a great deal of distraction in our homes and sincerely I think the use of the dining table should be scrapped in most African homes; I say Africa cause that’s where I come from.
Let’s take the senior high scenario for instance. Back in senior high school, it was prohibited to use mobile phones in most of the senior high schools, even if you had one you couldn’t use it in the dining hall. Imagine the type of bonds we created in the dining hall.
It took just about 2 or 3 meetings for us to be close or create a bond with our sitting partners. It didn’t matter if we were of the same class we just bonded effortlessly cause the only thing we had was each other at the dining table. We could only talk or stay mute and you know for most people staying mute is not the ideal thing for them.
So in all honesty I think phones should be banned at family dinners or any type of dinner at all as it spoils the bonding at these dinners and also the purpose of these dinners. It’ll be hard and I think we have gotten so deep into our phones that this kind of conversation will not be accepted but I do think it can be implemented.
For people who are starting families, I think it should be highly important to factor this in and see how best you can prevent this tradition from becoming a norm in your home.