I have no idea whether it’s because we really have nothing else to say in front of our friends and relatives. After all we have already shared on Facebook over what marvellous life we have, the trips we have gone on and the mouth-watering food we have inhaled over the weeks. If you think that we can then finally get down to what’s at stake, and what’s real – our lives, our ups and downs, our struggles and revelations when we finally got time to sit down with our best friends and family, you are wrong.
We are multi-tasking even when we have company. Our conversations are constantly interrupted by instant messages, texts and up to the minute Facebook uploads and downloads, as well as tweets and weibo. It feels that everyone else in the virtual world is more important than our companions at hand. Oh yes, they would understand, since they are doing exactly the same in their virtual friend sphere, at the same time.
And for the few who are not so much into the latest digital gizmos, or the unthinkable catastrophe where your gadgets are either out of power or network coverage, not to worry. If physical human interaction cannot be avoided, there is always our most loyal friend to the rescue, television sets.
There is nothing more tacky in my opinion than large screen LCD hanging television panels in restaurants in town, and they can be as densely installed as ceiling lights. I hate it when it’s now considered a must-have item on the restaurant fixture list. Not only are they in no way aesthetically pleasing, these 60 inches panels just suck the life out of everyone , turning them into chewing zombies.
Call me old-fashioned. If you want to catch a TV show, stay home for it, or record it for private viewing later. Please don’t strip away the last bit of enjoyment of actually sitting down for dinner, over a nice long chat. For me, that latter eye-to-eye interaction is actually what makes a meal memorable.
If it’s up to me, I would really pick some place without the floating TV sets. Maybe I’m really getting old.
Confessions of a Corporate Shopaholic 