I have to state my case, I'm no shrinking violet when it comes to posting on social media sites, in fact my post here is like stating the fecking obvious. However, today we popped into a very well known Calis restaurant for lunch and sat near to a family of five, Mum & Dad and three boys aged from about six to twelve. Each of the family had their own computer tablet in front of them and we watched them eat lunch with hardly a word exchanged between any of the family.
Now, before anyone tells me it's their prerogative, I fully and 100% agree that it is.
But I must say that after growing up in a family whose parents worked shifts, we never really had many opportunities to sit and eat together, the exception was of course on holiday where we ate together and spoke constantly about the days activity and plans for tomorrow. I really felt that this family were missing out on a great opportunity to interact with each other which is something we crave with our own family who are either scattered around the world, or worse still, deceased.
I went through an era where it was frowned upon to watch TV on the odd occasions while eating a family meal, but at least if we did watch TV while eating, we could all comment on how Brucie or Bob Monkhouse were doing or laugh together at Tommy Coopers jokes, whereas this family had a private interactive TV each which effectively excluded others.
If this is the future, we for one find it very sad.