'Anti-rudeness phone and headphone policy at Greggs should be baked into our thinking'

If you are reading this on your phone while standing in a queue at – put it down.

If you are one of those people unable to pluck out your AirPods or holster your phone at school pick-up time, this column is for you.

Well, for me too, ­actually, as I’ve been just as guilty as anyone else.

It’s the reason why I’ve been struck by the extent to which I agree with a ruling brought in by a branch of Greggs in Croydon, South London.

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They’ve decided they will no longer serve customers who are glued to their phones at the counter, or wearing .

And they are bang on. Hopefully other retailers or providers in the service industry will do likewise. Schools too.

Because we need to take a long, hard look at ourselves.

This isn’t just teenagers on the way to school, lost on their screens, or young adults in hoodies. It’s suited and booted men and women on the way to the office, heads down, music on, totally missing the here and now.

It is seemingly sensible parents on the way to or to pick up the kids from school.

All of us are guilty of lacking the manners to kill the music. The basic courtesy to tell the person on the other end of the line that you’ll call them back.

Discussing this issue with a primary school teacher friend of mine at the weekend, he explained he’d lost count of the number of parents he’d handed kids over to at the end of the day who would not look up from their phones. In some cases, the kids had been distressed, were sporting bruises from a run-in they’d had with another child or just wanted to excitedly tell their parent about their day. Only for the parent to find work, music or social media more engaging.

In doing so, we show all the self-awareness of King Charles turning up to a food bank in a chauffeur-driven limo, or .

This is a moment for us to check ourselves. We’ve become a selfish, fast food culture where nothing can wait, our priorities are skewed and we need music to accompany everything.

If you go to a bus stop, you won’t see people reading a book or a paper – but you will see them on their phone.

It seems we can’t stand still for a second without needing some form of entertainment from our screens – whether that’s listening to Spotify or scrolling through social media.

Ironically, you may even be reading this on a phone right now. But that Greggs ruling goes way beyond the frustrations of shop staff being forced to wait, steak bake and Belgian bun in hand, while we prove we have no idea how to conduct ourselves.

It goes beyond the fury of fellow customers also waiting while the people behind the counter struggle to make themselves heard over the pumping bass.

It’s about us. Our selfishness. We need to look up from our screens for long enough to work out how we can change that.

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