A New York City restaurant examined old surveillance video and discovered that customer use of mobile devices like iPhones are taking a huge bite out of business. Comparing 10-year-old archived tapes with recent digital video, the restaurant found that the time it takes customers to order has increased from about 8 minutes to 21 minutes. Most of the additional 13 minutes came from customers using their phones.
Another factor: more than half the current customers spent an average of 3 minutes taking photos of the food once it arrived. Then nearly half the customers asked the waiter to take a group photo. The time it took to request the check and the time it took to pay it also increased compared to the 10-year-old footage.