Over the weekend, my friend Joseph shared an article about a NYC restaurant that compared security camera footage from 2004 with footage from 2014. They say that the number of customers that they serve each day today is roughly comparable to the volume they handled ten years ago, but they’ve been receiving negative reviews online. Most of these negative reviews cite slow service.
Long story short, they found that patrons to the restaurant today are far too preoccupied with their smartphones. They’re wasting the first little while trying to connect to the Wi-Fi network, they waste more time snapping selfies and pictures of their food, and they’re occupying a significant portion of the servers’ time by asking them to take group photos for them.
My Life on a Smartphone
It’s impossible to say whether or not this story is legitimate and I question how or why 18 out of 45 customers (in the 2014 footage) ask to be seated at a different table. That being said, the article does bring up a very important point: our smartphones are ruining the dining experience.
“But, Michael… Aren’t you a total gadget geek and don’t you post all sorts of food porn pictures on Instagram?”
That’s true. I spend a lot of time on my smartphone and on my computer. At the same time, I have set some boundaries for how I use social media. When I’m at a family gathering, I try to keep my phone in my pocket as much as possible. And how I choose to use my smartphone while eating out depends largely on the context of the meal.
I’m Guilty of Promoting Food Porn
The fact of the matter is that I do typically end up using my phone at some point during the meal, for better or for worse. In the context of a very casual meal, as was the case with our cheap IKEA lunch shown above, I knew that we could take as long as we wanted to eat. There’s no problem there. In less of a cafeteria setting, I don’t let my phone slow or delay my dining experience. I don’t try to fumble through connecting to the Wi-Fi until I’ve opened the menu and decided on what I’m going to order.
Do I take pictures of my food? Absolutely. I don’t do it at every meal, of course, but when I do, I try to be as quick and unobtrusive as possible about it. More often than not, I start digging into my food within about a minute of its arrival. I figure that the “food porn” can wait, because I’m not exactly live-tweeting an event. Even if I do choose to truly “Instagram” my food, I do it as quickly as possible. That’s part of the reason why the majority of my uploads don’t have any real editing or filters applied to them.
Nothing Wrong with a Latergram
I realize that it’s right there in the name, but food porn on Instagram doesn’t necessarily need to be all that “instant” in nature. I can always “latergram” the photo while waiting for the next course or when I’m done eating too. No one is really going to care whether I post a picture of my pork chop at 7:00pm or 7:30pm.
This is particularly true if I plan on writing up more of a blog post later on, as was the case with restaurants like PiDGiN in Vancouver and Shen Yen Teppanyaki in Taiwan. If I’m taking pictures with my “real” camera, those are going to be better food porn photos than what my smartphone can produce anyhow.
Given my personality and my geeky inclinations, I generally have no real problem with people using their smartphones at the table. However, if that smartphone use is getting in the way of actually eating your food or actually conversing with your dining companions, then maybe the phone needs to be put away.
I always make sure people are cool with me snapping pictures of their food. My friends actually ask me if I want to take a picture of their food before they dig in.
The food pics are always good. If they are out with you, they should be aware you are a food porn King. Actually, you are more so than some of the celebrity Chefs I follow on Twitter.
OBTW, where is the McD’s video? I want to try to beat it.
Ed is still working on it.