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Is it bad manners to be on the phone while everyone’s watching TV?
With so much to catch up on in life, it’s become the new normal. Just don’t do it when there’s company. A case for what it means to be present
You go home and switch on the big screen. It plays something comforting in the background. Alongside, the more important small screen is at hand, for doomscrolling purposes. And so it goes, night after night after night, the perfect safe space. You’re in the zone.
So, why is it so impossible to get out of that zone when there’s company? The newest this-or-that argument on the internet these days is whether solo-scrolling on the phone is OK while everyone’s watching something on the bigger screen together.
As first-world problems go, it’s as ubiquitous as it is harmless. The scroller thinks they’re merely multitasking. Everyone else present finds it rude that one in their midst has only one eye on the TV. It’s less intrusive than talking during a movie. But somehow, it’s more conspicuous.
The issue cropped up for Delhi-based graphic designer Mitaali Raj, 28, and her engineer boyfriend Uday Ahuja, 29, in Munich. The two had to battle time zones and sleep schedules to FaceTime and watch movies together. Even then, Ahuja wouldn’t stop checking his notifications, emails and texts. “It’s so frustrating,” Raj says. “This is quality time that we’re supposed to be spending together. It felt like he wasn’t making the slightest effort.” Ahuja, on the other hand, says, “it’s natural for me to check every notification I get. I don’t think it’s disrespectful.”
They argued over it for a year before they set up designated “phone-free” time slots, and decided not to jointly watch any film more than 90 minutes long. It is an uneasy compromise, Raj admits, (because they don’t always agree on what to watch) but it’s worked.
“For many people, checking their phone has become almost like a reflex,” says Malvika Nagpal, a psychiatrist at Amaha Healthcare in New Delhi. “Some people believe they can follow what’s happening on both screens at the same time. That’s not truly possible,” she says. So when one person does it anyway, it’s bound to annoy the other.
Tavishi Sahu and Abhishek Sharma, both 34 and lawyers in New Delhi, broke up last year over the issue. Sharma played Call of Duty every evening after work. So, when he and Sahu watched movies or shows together, she expected him to look at the screen, not oscillate between a shared activity and the phone. It felt worse when she’d saved up episodes of Sex Education or The Last of Us to watch together. “If I could leave him alone for his me time, why couldn’t he have the same respect for us time?” she asks. Sahu ended the four-year relationship last year.
The problem isn’t the act itself. It’s often the refusal to address the issue. Nagpal also notes that it is a problem she is seeing cropping up more often. “People in big cities, especially are used to hectic schedules. Even downtime means doing something, catching up with social media, or texting someone they’ve been putting off for a while,” she says.
If your friend or SO isn’t giving you and your time the attention you deserve, Nagpal recommends taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. “Is it just during movie night or is this an issue elsewhere, too?” she asks. “Do they take every call that comes in when they’re supposed to be spending time with you? Is it that their job expects or demands it. Or do you feel like they put you and your needs second?”
Think back to dinners and brunches, work outings, meeting parents, movie dates. If this is behaviour that has seeped into the relationship, perhaps a good phone-free conversation is long overdue. If not, perhaps just let them scroll.
From HT Brunch, November 16, 2024
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