Technoference

Many of us have heard someone, perhaps ourselves, say something like "Oh that's smart", when that turns out to be dumb.

It's even more interesting when we parents refer to our cell phone as a "smartphone", but then tell our child "Get off of your dumb phone!"

I have a rather dumb habit when it comes to parent-child or household relationships intermingled with my phone. I've lost count of the number of times I've been caught checking my phone during family dinner time. Parental distraction by smartphone is a sin, I admit. A sin I am famous for. In fact, I have been told off repeatedly for stealing look at the phone's message at the dinner table. Not once. Not twice. But distraction ad infinitum.

There's such a strong case to be made for sentencing my behaviour. So much so that it deserves a name: technoference. That's a name I recently learned from reading a book about our digital landscape and technology.