Phone Stacking Game Goes Viral, Forces Dinner Conversations

Are you addicted to your cell phone so much that you can’t even put it down when eating with your friends and/or family? The latest phone stacking game craze just might be the thing to help you kick your habit, and maybe even spark a good conversation in the process.

The object of the game is simple enough. If you’re at, say, a restaurant with your friends, or at a dinner party and so on, participants simply stack their cell phones at the center of the table.

The idea is that it will be difficult for mobile-addicted participants to resist picking up their cell phone for fear of missing out on tweets, the latest in adorable kitten videos and, well, you get the idea. Should you lose at the “phone stacking” game by picking it back up, you’ll be faced with having to pay the bill for the entire party.

The phone stacking craze all started with Brian Perez, a Tumblr blogger who goes by the name “Lil b”. The blogger says he came up with the game as a ” fun concept in this new age high tech life of ours,” rightfully adding that “Conversation is the spice of life.”

Here’s the full list of rules, straight from Lil b:

Rules:

1) The game starts after everyone has ordered.

2) Everybody places their phone on the table face down.

3) The first person to flip over their phone loses the game.

4) Loser of the game pays for the bill.

5) If the bill comes before anyone has flipped over their phone everybody is declared a winner and pays for their own meal.

Variations/house rules:

-Starting the game after everyone is seated.

-In the rare event that multiple people flip their phones simultaneously, the bill is split between said players.

- Feel free to invoke penalties/strikes systems.

Notes:

- No touching or messing with anybody else’s phones.

- You don’t have to stack the phones. This was done for picture taking purposes.

Is it just me, or is it sad that the phone stacking game has to exist in order for people to put down their cell phones and actually chat with their friends?