I used to be good at people watching.
Now I never called it that because it was never a thing that people did intentionally.
Before smart phones, if you were going to get together with your friends or family, you would just set a time and a place and expect people to be there. If you got there before everyone else, you wouldn’t take your phone out and check Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, since that didn’t exist (I know, it is hard to remember that there was even such a time).
Instead, you just looked around.
If someone were doing something out of the ordinary, you would notice. If a mother were scolding her child for throwing a fit in public, you would look in that direction or slightly to the side, so as to not give the impression that you were eavesdropping. If a couple were on a date, you would try to guess where they were going, the status of their relationship, and if they were a good fit.
With the advent of smart phones and social media, you might have thought that people watching has turned into a lost art. Not so! People watching has merely moved from the physical sphere to the digital space.
[Read more…] about The Lost Art of People Watching…and Why it Still Matters