Putting the phone down đ”
đ The Big Idea: The Camera Eats First
I hesitate when I see a QR code in place of a printed menu at a restaurant table. These codes entice, if not require, people to open their phones and nudge them closer to the distractions of text messages and relentlessly engineered addiction of social media apps.
Many times Iâve peered around the dinner table to see that everyone else is on their phone. I sometimes glance over to see what could possibly be so fascinating and itâs often just scrolling through a social media feed. Nothing seemingly relevant to the moment.
Itâs important to give people the respect of your full attention. This includes friends at the dinner table or even the staff of a cafe when youâre ordering. The idea that people can adequately âmultitaskâ has been debunked.
Chris Hayes recently wrote in the New York Times, âThe endless diversion offered to us in every instant we are within reach of our phones means we never have to do the difficult work of figuring out how to live with our own minds.â
I cook at home a lot. I also go to a lot of restaurants. A decade ago I used to write for the food section of the Washington City Paper. I like documenting and sharing photos what I make at home and the food from restaurants where I think the kitchen staff did an excellent job.
This usually sparks discussion with friends about ingredients, cooking methods, a restaurantâs quality, menu recommendations, etc. Food is a pleasant conversation to have with people and because all people eat, itâs a topic likelier to establish a rapport than, say, quirks of the tax code or zoning reform.
However, at the dinner table, I take a photo of the food and post it laterâ the camera eats first! Iâm sure some people on Instagram assume I have strange dining habits, posting dinner photos at 11:30 pm or 8:15 am on a Thursday. In fact, these are delayed. I donât want to force others at the table to feel ignored while I edit photos and post them on Instagram. Food posts are too complex to post quickly; the world can wait a few hours.
Iâve kept pretty quiet about deliberate phone distraction at the table: how can I ask someone else not to disengage and scroll through social media if I take out my phone for a few seconds to take a photo to post later?
Fundamentally these seem like different things: spending a few seconds photographing the purpose of the event seems different from deliberately disappearing from the event and into the vastness of the internet.
In months leading up to my Spain trip, I cooked a lot of Spanish food, including paella, a rice-based dish cooked on a wide, shallow pan called a paella. Itâs hard to cook it just right so the rice is crisp, but not burned.
Recently at a Spanish restaurant, my dining companion thought the rice in the paella was a little burned at the bottom. I told him thatâs the way paella is supposed to be and that thereâs even a Catalan word for the rice crisping, but I couldnât remember it or provide any other context as to why itâs a part of paella.
Luckily, I took a photo of it, so you can see why this might be initially concerning, even though itâs typical of Catalonian and Valencian cuisine.
I wanted to look it up on my phone, but didnât, as that would suggest I think itâs ok to disappear into the internet during the meal. After all, I felt some guilt spending a few seconds photographing the food to post later.
Early each year I compile a list of restaurants I want to visit over the course of the year. I invite friends to select the restaurants theyâre interested in visiting with me.
This year I added a new phone use policy: During the meal you may not use your phone or other internet-connected devices to browse the internet, scroll social media, or carry on text conversations.
Weâll see how that goes.
đ¶ââïž Wandering Beyond Washington
đČđœ MĂ©xico City
In January, I went to my friend Aregoâs birthday party in Mexico City. The weather was warm and mostly sunny. We ventured outside the city to ruins of TeotihuacĂĄn. I expected it to be packed with tourists, but January must be a slow season for Mexico City.
We ordered some adventurous Mexican dishes that are unlikely to appear on American menusâ or in many Mexican menus, for that matter.
đšđŠ Toronto
A disgrace was scheduled for one long January weekend in D.C., so I escaped with a friend to Toronto for a few days.
I hadnât been to Toronto since 2019â pandemic border closures thwarted subsequent plans. The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is much bigger than I expected and has benefited from several expansions.
Finally, back in D.C., Nick held a farewell party before moving to New York. Donât worry, heâs still in our group chat.
đș The Screen
Juror #2 (Max)
Twelve Angry Men with a different twist. Nicholas Hoult plays a juror who discovers during a murder trial that he may know more about the case than anyone else in the courtroom.
Upper Middle Bogan (Netflix)
I discovered this decade-old Australian comedy about a posh doctor in Melbourne who learns that her snobby mother is not her biological mother and that she was adopted from a family of professional drag racers.
đâĄïž Future Travel
City, a sculpture by artist Michael Heizer
I scored two tickets to see whatâs arguably the largest work of art ever built. Artist Michael Heizer spent 50 years constructing one massive outdoor sculpture in the Nevada desert and itâs about the same size as the National Mall.
Heizer, who has works at Glenstone in Potomac, Md., finally opened the work to visitors two years ago and only allows six people to visit the three days each week itâs open. I will be one of them.
I will be going on June 18, probably flying to Las Vegas and then renting a car.
đ Assorted Links
- đ The last days of a bizarre, glorious and outdated underground mall. The dated Crystal City Underground is closing after 49 years. (Washington Post)
- đ Welcome to the loneliest Metro stop: Loudoun Gateway, the second-to-last station on the Silver Line, was envisioned as a thriving mixed-use stop. Instead, itâs anything but. (Washington Post)
- đ East Coastâs largest Vietnamese cultural hub now sits on âSaigon Blvdâ: A stretch along Northern Virginiaâs Eden Center was âhonorarily renamedâ Saigon Boulevard/ÄáșĄi Lá» SĂ i GĂČn. (Washington Post)
- đ âWe demand statehood,' âPride lives here,' new DC license plates say: DC is now offering two new speciality license plates. (NBC4) đž Related: Follow my Instagram dedicated to amusing DC license plates.
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đ Where Have All the Pastry Chefs Gone? Dessert menus are increasingly sparse and blah as restaurants struggle to keep pastry chefs on staff. (Washington City Paper) đ Related: Moon Rabbitâs pastry chef is a semifinalist for a 2025 James Beard Award. (Eater) đž Two of her desserts from my dinner there in March:
- đ Youâre Being Alienated From Your Own Attention: Every single aspect of human life is being reoriented around the pursuit of attention. (The Atlantic) I Want Your Attention. I Need Your Attention. Here is How I Mastered My Own. (New York Times)
- đ Americans With Dementia Are Grieving Social Media. People suffering cognitive decline struggle to navigate ever-changing social media platforms. (The Atlantic)
- đ Canât Afford a House? Just Build One in the Backyard: In Toronto residents are building homes in their yards and moving their children or their parents into them. (New York Times)
- đ How single-stair apartment reforms could advance across the region this year. In nearly all of America, apartment buildings over three stories must have two stairwells (or fire escapes), leading to some unintended consequences. (GGWash)
- đ Frank Lloyd Wrightâs Price Tower will be Sold for $1.4M Following Legal and Financial Turmoil: Wright's only skyscraper stands 19-stories tall in Bartlesville, Okla. (ARTNews via reader Chris Golden)
- đ Who first spoke Indo-European? DNA points to Eurasian herders 6400 years ago: Long-awaited data sets pinpoint roots of the worldâs largest language family spoken from India to Europe to the Americas. (Science)
đ The Numbers
The amount by which household grocery spending falls within six months of one household member starting a GLP-1 drug, e.g. Ozempic, etc.
- đ Source: The No-Hunger Games: How GLP-1 Medication Adoption is Changing Consumer Food Purchases. Cornell SC Johnson College of Business Research Paper. 27 Dec. 2024.
- đ Cited in: Ozempic economics: How GLP-1s will disrupt the economy in 2025. (Washington Post)
The number of steps I averaged each day in 2024, exceeding my 10,000 daily goal.
- đ Source: The Health app on my iPhone.
Iâm in the top 0.74% of Metro customers.
- đ Source: Metro Rewind analysis of my SmarTrip data.
đŹ The Wrap
Carolyn Hax writes an advice column in the Washington Post. A reader lamented that her husband doesnât know how to do some basic parenting tasks:
This morning, I asked my husband to pack our daughterâs lunch for school, and he said he didnât know how. I was shocked, then realized he probably doesnât know a lot of that kind of stuff. He wouldnât know how to pack a diaper bag, for example, and I doubt he knows who her dentist is. I am also the one who plans all outings or road trips. Heâs a great husband and dad, just sort of clueless about this kind of stuff.
Hax responded:
Thereâs no lunch-packing school. You learned by doing it. So, time for your husband to learn by doing.
Hax described the manâs behavior as âweaponized incompetence,â a phrase that seems to go beyond laziness. It suggests laziness with but also subtle manipulation to get others to do the work for you.
Iâve seen a lot of this manipulation in my life: Requests such as, Please do this for me because I donât know how, with the unspoken subtext, And I donât want to put in the work to learn how, just as you once had to.
Sometimes when I encounter weaponized incompetence, I respond, âI found this great website called google dot com and they have a lot of information on there.â
You are reading People in the Sun, a personal newsletter from Eric Fidler.
Header image: People in the Sun. Edward Hopper, 1960.