This New Year, resolve to stop phubbing

What were the resolutions you made, year after year, at the stroke of midnight on December 31? Quit smoking, shed the kilos, join a gym, cut down on the pegs or cut down on junk food? Winds of change are blowing every year, affecting every sphere of our lives.
Change has come in the resolution list too as more and more log in to pledge to root out new-age ills driven by technology.On yet another New Year, TOI, along with you, resolves to end the menace of phubbing, a side effect of technological advance.
What’s phubbing? You know, because it is happening all around you these days.
Remember how you got upset when your 14-year-old kept tapping into his iPad all the while you hosted your childhood friend and your son answered their question only in monosyllables, his attention fixed on the gadget in his hand? Remember how bad you felt the day your best friend left the city and you realized that you hardly spoke to her during the farewell party, busy with your chats on your smartphone?
Or how the once-lively family conversation over dinner has died down in the last few years, with most of them busy with their smartphones and tablets.
Sociologists and psychologists say phubbing is the 21st century avatar of the dreaded ‘alienation’, breaking relationships, affecting the social fabric and call for “nothing less than a mass movement” to counter this evil before it strikes strong roots. Alex Haigh, 23, from Australia, who began the “Stop Phubbing” movement, calls it the “end of civilization.” When TOI reporters approached people in the city, asking them if they would resolve this New Year to crusade against phubbing, we got an overwhelming response. It made us realize how deep this menace has permeated and we too resolved to join in and take the movement forward.
Over the next few weeks, under our campaign – Stop Phubbing — we will bring you reports on various aspects of phubbing and how each one of you could fight the menace and spread the word.