Zach Maxwell Staff writer

At long last, Chili’s restaurants have joined the 21st century and installed touch-screen menus at every table in their Durant eatery. I called a few friends in other towns and their Chili’s have the new “Ziosk” screens as well. I guess the restaurant considers itself a pioneer now, but really they’re just pioneers of pissing me off. You won’t find a more anti-tech person than me. I will lay out some of my biased, unresearched reasons here as they relate to Chili’s latest money scraper. I have always considered a nice evening out to be a refuge from the annoying technology-enveloping the world. I’ve even tried to enforce a “no texting at dinner” rule with family and friends, but too many can’t suppress the need to “check in” or take the highly overdone food selfie. But even I must text at dinner, because I spend a lot of time in the car and that’s a bad place to be texting. Whining about work or my latest editing class assignment simply cannot wait until after dessert. So, phones at dinner are OK in moderation. Still, I think the focus of a face-to-face meal should be actual human interaction. Which is why the Ziosk concept at Chili’s bothers me. It’s another level of touch-screen distraction to pull us away from each other, even from our own server. The whole menu slides by and you can even order by swiping the credit card gadget on the side of the contraption. This nearly eliminates the need for those smelly human waiters who keep coming by and bothering us while we’re trolling Facebook. Why not just tweet those southwestern egg rolls to me? It gets worse: The Chili’s “Ziosk” has a games feature where you can play trivia or other time-wasters – for only 99 cents! How in the web-wide world is giving more money to this corporate monstrosity a good thing? The Ziosk manufacturer points out that research shows higher tips for the wait staff at tables featuring the new “tablets.” I won’t dig too deep here, but if the research is self-serving then the outcome probably is too. A friend pointed out that the touch screen menu with photos of the food and beverages will help out illiterate customers who may struggle with printed menus. But the photos are the same in the old-fashioned menu, plus an illiterate person could be taken advantage of with the touch-and-pay feature on the Ziosk.The tablets are being called “third servers” by the manufacturer in a recent article in Forbes magazine. Most eateries take pride in their servers, so I’m not sure what the actual message here would be for the hard workers at Chili’s. I love Chili’s willingness to be involved in community fundraisers and activities, even with their recent hiccup involving a national autism awareness group. But in this world of incessantly increasing connectivity (most of it for very superficial, self-serving purposes), Chili’s just became the place not to go if you want a meal break from the matrix.