Is it somehow possible that people who purchase cell phones are always automatically enrolled in a class on how to be rude, thoughtless and obnoxious? What is it that turns so many cell phone users into uncaring, obstreperous individuals?
If you are sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room are you interested in hearing the ongoing conversation of the person in the chair next to you on their cell phone?
Is it considered acceptable conduct for someone to get on an elevator while continuing to conduct a cell phone give-and-take?
The confined space of an elevator is definitely not the place to be carrying on a discussion that is truly personal.
If you are sitting in some quiet location attempting to read a book, how egregious is it for someone with a cell phone to come and sit nearby and to (loudly) converse thereon, even to the point of diatribe and vitriol?
While dining out, does a person in the booth behind you who insists on speaking with some distant unseen entity deserve to be asked to cease and desist?
Does the incessant and persistent ringing of someone’s cell phone in a public meeting meet the requirements of public opprobrium?
Why do people who go out for walks— many times just for the quietude of doing so— carry their cell phones with them and converse on them while walking? Is it not possible for some people to relinquish the use of their cell phones for the few brief minutes of being outside partaking of nature and engaging in an exercise to improve their health?
It’s even possible that some walkers at the College Park Gym walking track will utilize their phones while walking there and there have certainly been instances when someone will get a call on their cell phone while in church. Maybe there ought to be a commandment against that!
There are many people who utilize cell phones for perfectly legitimate reasons because of the nature of their profession (although one must wonder how the world functioned without them.)
But there are also far too many people who use cell phones strictly for a convenience — or to make themselves look important— and have absolutely no clue about how that use can impose unacceptable intrusions on those around them, both users and non-users alike.
But the inappropriate use of cell phones is not limited strictly to verbal conversations. With the advent of texting, the use of “smart” phones has become not only intrusive, it has become downright dangerous.
Recently the victim of an automobile accident filed suit against the person responsible for the accident, and the girlfriend of that person who was not even at the scene!
The person filing the suit was riding a motorcycle with a passenger. He was hit by the defendant who was driving a pickup truck and admitted that he was “texting” at the time of the accident.
A search of the defendant’s phone showed that he and his girlfriend had transmitted over 30 text messages to one another within a short period of time prior to the accident, so the plaintiff sued the girlfriend as well, alleging that she was complicit in causing the accident.
It will be interesting to see how the court decides that case.
There is nothing wrong with being “disconnected” from events around you.
The use of cell phones is not so new that virtually everyone can’t remember a time without them, when we all were able to function perfectly well without them.
Now that they are so commonplace though, it would be really nice if their users would understand that two things.
Having a conversation on a cell phone is not so much different from standing and talking with another person face-to-face.
They also need to consider whether or not they would want that similar conversation overheard by everyone else in the room.
