Restaurant Offers 50% Discount If You Turn Off Your Phone Like a Respectable Human Being

Fun! (Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images)

You're out to dinner with your friends and itching to take out your iPhone, but you deny temptation in favor of being a respectable dining companion.

Then, your friend Ashley takes her phone out to Instagram her meal. Since her phone's now in action, your other friend figures, "Hey, why not?" and whips out his iPhone too. The chain reaction continues until suddenly, you're just five strangers, bathed in orbs of blue light, staring at screens while you completely ignore each other's existence.

It's a pathetic scene, but a common one. One restaurateur in Israel, though, is finally declaring, "Not in my house." Jawdat Ibrahim is so over it, he's now offering a 50 percent discount to customers who turn off their phones while dining, according to Time.

He told the Associated Press that he's disgusted by the changed culture of eating, in which diners tap away at Angry Birds instead of paying attention to their surroundings. Sometimes they go as far as asking him to reheat their food since they were too busy stalking their exes on Facebook to notice it was in front of them.

We applaud Mr. Ibrahim's efforts, and we hope New York restaurants will follow suit. This has to be the easiest way to get half off your meal since finding a pube in your soup.