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#Post#: 5670--------------------------------------------------
Phone Stacking
By: Mac Date: February 6, 2012, 8:44 am
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[glow=red,2,300]Phone Stacking[/glow]
This isn't techie. It's a social thing and I think brilliant.
HTML http://www.inquisitr.com/wp-content/2012/01/phone-stacking-game-viral-dinner-game.png
[quote]So it’s Saturday night and you’re out with friend. Are
they the inconsiderate jerk who can’t stop checking their
smartphone? Or is that you?
Either way, here’s one way to make dinner a little more
interesting.
I’ve seen/heard this described as both “The Phone Stacking Game”
and “Don’t Be a Dick During Meals”. It’s been mentioned on a
couple of blogs, but a quick straw poll of my friends suggests
that it hasn’t become widespread yet, at least on the West
Coast. Which is a shame, because it’s perfect for folks in tech.
Here’s how it works: At the beginning of the meal, everyone puts
their phone face down at the center of the table. As time goes
on, you’ll hear various calls, texts, and emails, but you can’t
pick up your phone. If you’re the first one to give in to
temptation, you’re buying dinner for everyone else. If no one
picks up, then everyone pays for themselves.
You can explain the game in a few different ways. Most
obviously, it could be a protest against the incessant,
unthinking use of cell phones during social gatherings. Or maybe
it’s a game that acknowledges the new reality and tests your
willpower accordingly. Personally, I like to think of it as a
free market exercise. After all, people love to say, “Sorry, but
I have to take this.” Do you have to answer it? Really? Is it
that important to you? Great, then you can pay.
No matter what the explanation, it could make for a tense
meal.[/quote]
#Post#: 5672--------------------------------------------------
Re: Phone Stacking
By: Mac Date: February 6, 2012, 8:52 am
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Insightful follow-up by someone else.
[quote]GetKempt had a story this week about a new dinner
challenge that's a test of will and stamina. Think quarters, but
less eye-hand coordination.
It's called "phone stacking," and it requires everyone, at, say,
a dinner party or happy hour, to relinquish their cellulars to
the middle of the table and leave them there for the duration of
the meal. Be it a game, mandate, stress-test or perhaps welcome
relief, it seeks to quell the ****-storm of social media-induced
rudeness we've collectively adopted, putting technology ahead of
good company.
All rings, dings, beeps, quacks, and blinks are to go
unanswered. Taunting you. Laughing at you. Frolicking in the joy
of knowing who has done what, where, when and how, while you --
lonely, little you -- must sit amongst friends and focus on them
only.
That catch in phone stacking is that the first person to pick up
their phone has to buy dinner for everyone else.
A few days after the GetKempt article ran, writer Russell
Brandom addressed a few objections to the concept of phone
stacking. One repeated plea was, "My job requires me to be on
call 24 hours a day."
"No it doesn't; you just like to say that," wrote Brandom.
Checking my phone constantly is an absolutely shameless habit.
My phone blinks. And I love its blinking. But that blink can
also be like a headlock. Fire alarms, cross walk signals and
fallen down old ladies get less attention than that blink.
A while back I was at Oak and noticed soon after arriving that
every person down the long bar to my right and left was passing
bits and bites with a swipe of their forefinger. My own power
game ensued. Should I be a renegade and just sit there and do
nothing?
No phone for me, I decided. But, then no one noticed because
they were all too busy with texting and browsing. They don't
have TVs at Oak, and I got pretty bored pretty quick, which is
one reason phones are so handy.
Phones can be shields sometimes, too. They help us avoid
conversations and interacting when we specifically don't want to
for whatever reason.
But it's one thing when we're passing time or shielding
ourselves, another when we're at dinner with friends, which is
what phone stacking was built for. Does the urge to check your
email trump the friends sitting in front of you? Will a blinking
light work your nerves like a termite in wood, gnawing at you
until you slap plastic on the table and yell, "I'm out! Dinner's
on me!"
I can't wait to stack.[/quote]
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