Stuck to the screen

A modern (and common) dilemma: a group of friends gathered around a table together, staring at their phones, totally detached from the group around them. What is it about staring at an individual screen that feels so isolating?

I am not making some sweeping statement that technology is ruining our social skills and our ability to connect. During our TV binges, my group joined together, sharing one screen and one viewing experience. We chatted, made jokes, and asked important questions like "Wait, who is that again?" and "Why won't he die already?" In this case a screen provided us with a real bonding experience. 

The group video game experience was not quite that. I wouldn't say it totally alienated us from one another or worsened our relationships, but it certainly wasn't vastly improving our connections either. Our conversations were short and practical during gameplay, everyone was very immersed in the game and we rarely looked away from our screens. Because of our different skill sets and schedules for playing, we were all at different levels of the game and so were unable to share that unspoken connection of "we're in it together."

I think video games can be a great resource for connecting people. I think online gaming communities, though often misled or misrepresented, can be good environments for building relationships. I think family game time playing Just Dance or Wii Sports can be healthy for familial bonding. Video games are not bad. However, with this binge, each of us playing Pokemon on our own never turned into anything larger. 

This could be due to a lot of factors (Pokemon doesn't require a lot of in-depth discussion, we only had two days to binge together, etc.), and I also don't want it to seem like I didn't like my group or the game. I enjoyed both, and found that I still felt less isolated playing in a group than playing alone (duh). But was it a lovely, Girl Scouts-esque, trust-developing, bonding experience? Tragically, the answer is no.