Appearance: Groups of people eating together, talking together and laughing together, while also twitching slightly from withdrawal. So this is specifically to do with banning phones in restaurants? Restaurants and bars, yes.
Hardly a new thing, is it? Ironically, a decade ago many fine dining establishments were unbanning mobiles, surrendering to the idea that people couldn’t be stopped from posting photographs of their food. I suppose it was considered good for business.
Not any more – at the Spy Bar in London, they put a sticker over your phone’s camera lens at the door. People can just peel the sticker off. It’s supposed to work on a psychological level – to preserve privacy and allow people to enjoy themselves without distraction.
Shouldn’t a ban be more, erm, enforceable? At Antagonist, a bar in Charlotte, North Carolina, customers are required to put their phones in a locked pouch of the type used to enforce phone bans in schools. At the Trophy Room in Phoenix, Arizona, guests’ phones are stored in a vintage filing cabinet during their visit.
At the Clink restaurant in London they lock all phones in an outside cabin, but that’s because the restaurant is actually inside HMP Brixton, where possession of a mobile phone is prohibited. OK, maybe a phone ban should be less enforceable than that. Some places use a carrot instead of a stick.
At Al Condominio in Verona, Italy, customers are offered a free bottle of wine if they surrender their phones before the meal. Apparently 90% of customers accept the challenge. As would I for free wine.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
