it seemed reasonable to me.

This past weekend a committee that I'm on spent two days visiting with a potential associate pastor for children, youth and families. During dinner on Sunday evening (at Biaggi's - yummy) this candidate made the comment to five of us gathered there that when he does some activities with youth or leads them in discussions he expects them to put their smart phones away. I, being a 72 year old person who enjoys live conversations with friends, saw nothing wrong with this at all. Imagine my surprise at a follow-up meeting this evening when the youth representative on our committee stated that he didn't like the idea of giving up his phone, even for a little while and none of the other kids would like it either. Among other things he said "You know, it's like in school, if the teacher's lecture gets boring you can just get out your phone and play a game or text someone." Really?  All four of my grandchildren, in four different middle and high schools, have told me that they are not allowed to have their phones out during school hours at all. So that's about six hours at a time that they are separated from their phones and they all seem to survive. Granted, at the end of the day almost every student I see walking out of school is on their phone. I accept that it isn't only kids who are super glued to their phones these days. On a trip to Scotland last summer I happened to look up from a conversation I was having with two other people in our group during dinner and realized that we three were the only ones talking. The other 13 were all sending and checking messages on their phones. Granted, we were eating Haggis o maybe they needed the distraction. And now truth compels me to admit that during our meeting this evening I was on my phone twice, briefly, to check on one of members who was running late. I also noticed that our youth, who was so concerned about phone restrictions, didn't touch his during the two hours that we met. I guess we were less boring than his teacher.