Put that iPhone away and mingle to save mankind

"Hello, nice to meet you. I have a question. What can be done to ensure mingling at parties? It's already under threat from mechanization. Well, gadgetization. Don't you think we need a Copenhagen summit for conversation; or a mingling G-20, perhaps known as M-20? For once a meeting of leaders, dubbed a talking shop, would be a success."

Hey, as questions go, it's better than, "Didn't I see you at a party last week?" - a standard opening line at much of the socializing that Christmas brings. Every year the same fears about mingling re-surface. "How will I approach people?" "How will I move on?" "Will I be trapped in the corner with the party bore, hearing all his professional gripes, affecting care about their family holiday, fearing the conversation will only end if one of us dies?"

But these fears have been updated. There may be a day when we look back on mingling - yes, with all its perils - and say (to ourselves): "Ah, I remember the day when people actually spoke to one another."

The threat to human interaction is "e-mingling". In ancient times - before wi-fi - the stigma of standing alone at a party would have driven even the most awkward to conversation. Now the stigma has gone. You're never lonely with your gadget.

Men have long stood at social gatherings furtively fiddling with their equipment. Now they do it openly. You can see them, touching their iPod Touches, not talking at all. Some women also take refuge in their shiny accessories, rather than seek company. Once you would have been a wall flower, now a Dell flower.

Yet social networking and micro-blogging indicate a propensity to mingle.

Online mingling is flourishing; offline mingling is dreaded. Why? Until the M-20 summit is convened, here is my module in modern mingling manners. It will help the human race. It could also help you at parties.

1) Rebrand mingling. Call it micro-mingling. Or nano-mingling. It could then flourish.

2) Take the fun traits of on-line mingling and replicate them off-line.

3) For example, create "mingle apps". This i-Phone app would provide opening lines and a selection of follow-ups. All you would have to do is read them out until you were confident enough to go conversational commando. And if you blurt out the suggestion of a further date and it gets spurned, you can blame it on an operating system glitch. It didn't fancy you really.

Without all this re-branding, I shudder at the future. More people might attend parties with their gadgets, invites will go from "plus-one" to "plus iPhone". Messages, e-mails and texts will replace actual conversation, people will no longer communicate off-line, relationships will not start, children will not be born, and the human race will die out because of e-mingling.

So put your gadget away. Approach a fellow party-goer and say: "I'm a campaigner for mingling. Are you?" When bored, interrupt with: "I have to move on, I'm mingling for mankind." See? Taking action to save mingling also helps you escape the bore.

You'd better not be reading this on your iPhone at a party. Really. Close me down and go and talk to someone. NOW.