No 'phones! - a new etiquette

A week ago today was Hannah's twenty-second birthday. I can still remember, when she was maybe three years old, I had my first PC and I had given her the CD-ROM of 'PB Bear's Birthday'. She became adept at using the mouse and progressing the story by herself pretty quickly. I can remember my mum being amazed by Hannah's prowess at a time when she - my mum - had to actually look at the mouse each time she wanted to move it.

I have six children: Charlie, the eldest, is twenty-four and Abi, the youngest, is ten. When Charlie was born, I hadn't even heard of the Internet, yet Abi has a 'phone that has more storage than my first PC. When Facebook was launched, Charlie was just a few weeks short of her thirteenth birthday although she'd be sixteen before she started her account. Conversely, Dan (12), has five times as many followers as me on Instagram.

Thus, they've all entered the world of social media at different points in its evolution. Charlie was in the generation that pioneered a lot of the mistakes that people are still blithely making today, whilst with Dan I'm having to work out just how to be a good dad. Never, for example, 'like' an Instagram post (very uncool) but also come down pretty quickly and fairly hard on anything inappropriate. Or, more accurately, anything I deem to be inappropriate, whilst trying to remember what it's like to be twelve.

As a result of this staged introduction to social media at various points in its own development, I've had a chance to watch an evolving set of etiquettes that are not universal across age groups. And I encountered a new one today.

The Minx and I had driven down to Fallowfield with Dan and Abi to visit Charlie and Hannah (the Mini-Minx being on a school trip). We met up at Hannah's flat and then all headed across to the Fallow for a drink and a bite to eat. As we sat down, one of the older girls stated that we should all put our 'phones on the table, thus neatly avoiding the plague of my (approximate) generation, whereby, during the course of the evening, people - including me - often pick up their 'phones and, effectively, leave the room for a bit. I liked it! And it was a perfectly formed reminder that when it comes to social media and its related graces, we are no more experienced than the younger generations. In this respect, they have just as much wisdom as we do.