How to Get a Friend to Put Away Their Phone Without Being a Jerk

You can ask a direct question that gives the person two simple options: (1) excuse himself to attend to the crisis happening on his device, or (2) kindly put away his phone.

The question goes like this: “I see you’re on your phone. Is everything okay?”

Remember to be sincere—after all, there might really be an emergency. But more often than not, he’ll mutter a little excuse, tuck his phone back into his pocket, and start enjoying the night again.

If we’re not intentional about making time and space for distraction-free discussions, we risk losing the opportunity to truly know others and allow them to truly know us.

In the same way that society reduced social smoking with social antibodies, we can reduce distraction while with friends.

By getting agreement from our friends and families to manage distraction and taking steps to remove external triggers that don’t serve us, we can quarantine the social contagion of distraction while spending time with people we love.