A Different View
The pathway to perfect happiness – turn off your phone
We’ve all seen it – two people sitting across from each other in a restaurant, utterly engaged in conversation…..only not with each other, but on their phones.
They won’t necessarily be shouting into their mobiles, but vigorously texting is just as bad and just as anti-social. And yet it’s like cutting off your right hand – how could you get through an entire meal without it?
I’ve done it myself, but not frequently – and I’ve sat there with five or six people where four of them were on the phone.
It’s not like they were in school and weren’t allowed to use their mobiles for the four hours before lunch – it’s just habit as much as anything else, but at least one expert says it doesn’t make you happy.
Apparently we would all be much more content if we turned off our mobiles and concentrated on friends and family rather than checking emails and text messages.
This is according to an acknowledged expert on happiness; Professor Paul Dolan, of the London School of Economics, is also a former member of the British Cabinet Office’s Behavioural Insight Team, or Nudge Unit, which suggests ways people can make small changes to improve their lives.
He says that the popularity of smart phones meant that users were constantly having their attention drawn to the devices rather than to the people around them.
Enjoying human company is more worthwhile than repeatedly looking at your phone, he believes. And he wants people to alter behaviour before they start to suffer from mental illness as a result.
“We’re constantly having our attention distracted, and distraction is a cost. When you switch tasks it requires attention,” he told a conference in Columbia recently.
And you think of that TV ad for the guy walking into everyone while texting and then getting into his car – so if texting and driving is clearly bad for you, texting and eating can’t be too far behind.
“Paying attention to what you’re doing and who you are with, and turning your phone off and enjoying being with your friends is much better for you than constantly checking your phone and checking emails,” says the Professor.
He said that subtly altering the environment in which we use our phones would be the most effective way of preventing distractions.
He cited an American game called ‘Don’t be a d*** at dinner’ in which participants placed their devices in the middle of the table and the first one to use it had to pay for everyone else’s meal.
I know some people who’d be stony broke if that were ever implemented here – but it just illustrates the point.
Those of us of a certain age lived the majority of our lives without the luxury of a mobile and, while we wouldn’t be without them now, we can survive them on silent for an hour while we eat.
Ditto on trains or in queues; text, by all means, but do not talk – no one wants to know what you’re up to, who you saw last night, where you’re going to or what you plan to do when you get there.
Some things are best left unsaid – at least until you’re face to face with the person you want to say them to.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
The only time in your life that you should ever utter the words: “Do you know who I am?” are if you’ve just had a bang on the head or you are unfortunately suffering from dementia.
Because, otherwise, the phrase ‘do you know who I am’ only serves to make things a whole lot worse.
Normally, the phrase is unleashed towards late night door staff on a wave of alcohol – and never once in the history of time has it produced the result the utterer had intended.
The doorman may well know who you are which is often the very reason you’re not getting into the place in the first instance – or if he doesn’t know who you are, he won’t be unduly influenced when he does, unless you’re a famous movie star or his long-lost cousin.
‘Do you know where I am?’ might often be closer to the phrase you’re looking for, because that would serve you well when you’re looking for a taxi.
‘Do you know who I am?’ is a threatening phrase that in truth wouldn’t frighten the cat. But if you’re anxious to dig the hole a few shovels deeper, you should follow up with ‘I’d like to speak to your manager.’
Managers can be elusive at the best of times, but they’re normally rarer than hen’s teeth when it comes to the small hours of the morning – and even if they’re there, they are most likely watching proceedings on CCTV…just so they know who you are, in case you yourself can’t remember.
‘I’d like to speak to your manager’ suggests that you and he or she are from the one social sphere which is several strata north of the one occupied by door staff.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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A Different View with Dave O’Connell
As it turned out, we were much closer to a Eurovision win than we could ever have imagined – not Ireland, of course, because we’ve now mastered the art of just sending cannon fodder to be blown out in the semi-final.
No, this was just two of us – myself and our eldest – who were lucky enough to be at Anfield for the Reds’ recent win over Brentford, where positioned in the seat right in front of us were four happy lads from Finland.
One of them, we now know, was Käärijä, the singer of the catchiest song at Eurovision, Cha Cha Cha.
But just a week before 7,000 people sung his catchphrase at the Eurovision Arena, he and two his mates – accompanied by an older bloke who had to be either his dad or from the national broadcaster – sat anonymously in the same corner of the lower level of Anfield’s Main Stand.
He was utterly unknown to us as well of course, and the only thing that saw him stand out was his green nail varnish. Live and let live, of course, but it still ensures that you make an impression even if it looks like you were just very late for St Patrick’s Day.
Käärijä may well be Liverpool’s greatest Scandinavian fan, although the bar for that is set fairly high, given that they invade the city in greater numbers every two weeks than the Vikings did just once during the first millennium.
Equally, he may not be a football fan at all – although, as the rest of the week proved, he sure loves a crowd.
Positioned as we were in the corner of the Main Stand, the next section to us, around the corner in the Anfield Road Stand – currently adding a top layer – was occupied by the visiting Brentford supporters.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
Contactless payments reached a record €17.9 billion in Ireland last year – up by 31 per cent on 2021, as people came out from under their Covid shell and appear to have left their cash behind them.
Figures from the Banking & Payments Federation found that – despite the cost-of-living increases – the Irish public made three million contactless payments a day, worth an average of €53 million in the final quarter of 2022.
Given that there are 3.8 million people in Ireland over the age of 18, that means that almost every single one of us tapped the card every day last year.
And again, on the presumption that there are a few who still prefer peeling a fifty off a wad of notes, the true figure may be even higher, as we eschew actual money every time we go into a restaurant, bar or shop.
Then comes the monthly morning of reckoning when you open your statement – electronic of course because, like paper money, banks don’t deal in paper statements anymore either – and your guilty secrets unfurl like a rap sheet before your very eyes.
Five taps of a Friday night in the local, followed by a five-ounce burger meal on the way home.
And just why did you need a family-pack of crisps when a small bag would have done? Was all that beer and wine really for a party, or a night in just for one?
Cash provided plenty of dark corners to ignore your profligacy, but there are no hiding places in the contactless world.
Worse still, until that morning of reckoning arrives, you’ve no clue how much you’ve spent, and handing over the card doesn’t hurt half as much as parting with hard cash.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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