Put down the phone and tell me you love me!

My biggest pet peeve is going out and seeing couples out at restaurants so embraced in their phones that they barely pay attention to each other. It's possible that I'm only seeing a tiny second into their relationship and I'm really only seeing the second each of them check their emails. However, I feel that I always see this! I've even noticed that my own boyfriend and I sometimes get so into our phones that we completely forget we are supposed to be enjoying each other's company. Constantly being around someone who is constantly checking their phone has become an even bigger pet peeve of mine the second I noticed that when hanging out with my friends we would have long periods of silence while we sat next to each other just on our phones. It’s a bit hypocritical since I know I do it myself but I when I’m personally hanging with someone, I want to feel as if I have their full attention. Nowadays there is a constant need to feel caught up with our friends on social media. If we don’t know what someone is eating or how he or she is spending his or her day we feel a sense of being out of touch. I know that personally I need to always check my phone, even when there’s nothing to check. The second I go on my 10-minute break at work or even the second I get out of class I feel the need to instantly check my Facebook or Instagram. I then spend the next 15 minutes catching up on all the most recent posts. Almost every time I check my social media accounts there is nothing new or even memorable, yet the next time I get a bit of free time I feel the need to instantly check it. It’s a new form of the common acronym ‘FOMO’ meaning ‘the fear of missing out’. This i the effect of having large amounts of social media that keeps us connected with all of our friends with a single swipe of an app. If we aren’t always keeping up with the most recent posts we might miss something everyone else is talking about.