Paleo Retiree writes:
I was nursing an Old-Fashioned and messing with my new iPhone at the corner saloon when I looked up and saw this scene before me:
Counting me, as I suppose we must, that means four out of the six people at this bar were sitting there drinking and staring into electronic screens. Wasn’t socializing one of the main things we used to go to bars for?
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
What I find dismaying, is that everyone in that pic (or behind the cameraphone), is older than me, rather than younger; I expect that kind of thing from young’uns today, but I hope it remains less common amongst older folks.
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Well, they do all look like Boomers, so maybe you should expect them to be that narcissistic.
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Ha! Good point. 🙂
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At least they aren’t on laptops (although the black dude has a tablet).
Prolonged screen-staring in public is a status-striving thing — “look at me, I’m not looking at you.” It tends to strike the age groups who are most eager to prove how uniquely awesome they are, and too important to pay any attention to their surroundings. But this picture was snapped in New York City, probably the darkest black hole of one-upsmanship (“Center of the Universe”), so even the grown-ups are playing along.
Not even the adults become secure and established in New York — everyone is always struggling not to tumble downward, hence always broadcasting how well and up-up-up they appear to be doing (while sinking deeper in debt behind the public performance).
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The Absinthe Smart-phoner.
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Maybe they are texting one another
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Is that Ben Bernanke?
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Did you make him pick up your check?
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Interesting that the screen-users are all alone, and all male. Anyone else reminded of that old Steve Martin movie “The Lonely Guy”?
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I miss cigarettes in bars more than ever.
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