Have you seen the recent post about Generation Z being socially inept thanks to "social" media?

I wanted to share my story:

A few years ago I dated a girl whose parents would text her CONSTANTLY and DAILY. Every date had frequent moments when her nose was in her phone updating her parents on us literally getting coffee minutes prior or taking the metro and just getting to the next platform. She would text her parents so often that we would be standing next to each other, without saying a word, on an actual planned date, while getting lunch or even walking in the park, and I had nothing to do and nobody to talk to and all I could hear was *tap tap tap* on her iPhone screen. When I had the ability to glance at her screen I could always see her Mom and Dad busily typing and responding to every blurb she sent. And what killed me the most was that they knew I was on the date with her.

I felt that I was not getting enough healthy social interaction from her and decided to bring it up as best I could. When I brought this up, she went on the offensive and blamed ME for trying to take time away from her parents. I don't know what you call that kind of abuse, but that put my brain for a loop. For weeks I thought I was the abuser. But all I did was tell her I felt that I wasn't getting enough social interaction in the relationship. This was healthy social interaction that I knew was normal to receive and deserve, because I had gotten it plenty of times before in college, high school, work, early life, etc through interactions with friends and family.

I finally rationalized that I was not wrong. It took me another few weeks, but I ended that relationship for my own mental health. It was rather difficult, because I thought, if she could just put her phone down while we were together on dates and talk with me for the WHOLE time I was spending time with her, she would be an enjoyable person.

Why were her parents texting her SO much? Why did they need to know every detail of every interaction their daughter told them about (she admitted to me once that she never told her parents of her college hookups. Her parents literally think she's an angel because she omitted the sexually devious part of her life. How fucked up is that.) And yet, how did they rationalize that the frequency of texting their own mid-20's daughter was healthy? From my perspective, her Dad and Mom were obsessively "into" their daughter's life. Shouldn't they be busy with their own life?