What’s interesting about the conclusions the Pew Research Center draws in its latest media survey is that they’re so inconclusive.
Why? As we all know, there are lots of reasons—the ones some of us (not all) might call good reasons, and the ones some of us (not all) might call bad ones. Some 45 percent used their phones to post a picture or video of the occasion—which is kind of nice, though not if you were just badgered into coming out onto the sun porch and saying cheese for 20 minutes until all the children happen to smile at once. Yet 16 percent got out their cell phones to get out of the group activity, and 10 percent to avoid the group discussion. Yet the human race has searched for millennia for graceful ways to accomplish these despicable goals.
