Well...but they would not be giving up their phones in such a scenario. There is an attachment to this (to me) puerile need to constantly chitter chatter and seem like you are so importantly connected that you can’t let your damn cel phone gadget loose. It creates, to me, an atmosphere of officiousness and these are sort of snotty folks anyway, if I may be crass. It (the gadget obsession) elevates the connection to people who AREN’T sitting with you away from people who ARE sitting with you. If the patrons WERE having a good time with their co-patrons, wouldn’t or shouldn’t they be happier being able to spend more time (the extra 40 minutes) with them? No, they are in too much of a hurry yet preoccupied with the trivial. It is a value shift, away from interpersonal to the electronic.
They want a waiter to take pictures of them with their pals but they are less interested in actually BEING with their pals. It’s more important to create, tweet and retweet the record of their meet-up than to enjoy the meet-up itself. At the same time, if they are hurried, they are (as usual) completely oblivious to the idea that their gadget-obsession slows down their selection and receipt of what it is they ordered.
It is my tendency to move through a restaurant meal not necessarily as fast as I can, but more quickly than lackadaisically, unless I am with good friends and out for a fun time-sink. This is not the current modus, apparently.
I did not glean from this article whether there is or was a food quality issue. The different items generating the complaints are: Spotty wi-fi; slow service. Both of those seem (to me) to be sourced from the gadget-obsession, and maybe because the interpersonal interaction between & among the customers is being degraded because of that very same obsession, the overall experience of eating in the place itself has lost luster.
I got in the habit as a single guy living alone, to read while I was eating. It’s a hard thing to break because I travel for business and am frequently eating alone so I read from my device while I’m at the table and during my meal.
At the same time I am not doing “selfies” or taking photographs of the food to post to any of the social media. I have warned my “friends” on social media that if they post pictures of food or drinks, they are gone. I don’t give a damn about the food. Take a pic of the group, the place, whatever...tell me what you are doing, I’m OK with that.