A Difference Between Important And Self-Important
Important: Can't be reached.
Self-Important: Leash by Nokia. (Coming soon to disrupt a cafe, bar, restaurant, elevator, bus, or subway car near you.)
Smart article by Christine Rosen on cell phones in The New Atlantis.
Certain public interactions carry with them certain unspoken rules of behavior. When approaching a grocery store checkout line, you queue behind the last person in line and wait your turn. On the subway, you make way for passengers entering and exiting the cars. Riding on the train, you expect the interruptions of the ticket taker and the periodic crackling blare of station announcements. What you never used to expect, but must now endure, is the auditory abrasion of a stranger arguing about how much he does, indeed, owe to his landlord. I’ve heard business deals, lovers’ quarrels, and the most unsavory gossip. I’ve listened to strangers discuss in excruciating detail their own and others’ embarrassing medical conditions; I’ve heard the details of recent real estate purchases, job triumphs, and awful dates. (The only thing I haven’t heard is phone sex, but perhaps it is only a matter of time.) We are no longer overhearing, which implies accidentally stumbling upon a situation where two people are talking in presumed privacy. Now we are all simply hearing. The result is a world where social space is overtaken by anonymous, unavoidable background noise—a quotidian narration that even in its more interesting moments rarely rises above the tone of a penny dreadful. It seems almost cruel, in this context, that Motorola’s trademarked slogan for its wireless products is “Intelligence Everywhere.”Why do these cell phone conversations bother us more than listening to two strangers chatter in person about their evening plans or listening to a parent scold a recalcitrant child? Those conversations are quantitatively greater, since we hear both sides of the discussion—so why are they nevertheless experienced as qualitatively different? Perhaps it is because cell phone users harbor illusions about being alone or assume a degree of privacy that the circumstances don’t actually allow. Because cell phone talkers are not interacting with the world around them, they come to believe that the world around them isn’t really there and surely shouldn’t intrude. And when the cell phone user commandeers the space by talking, he or she sends a very clear message to others that they are powerless to insist on their own use of the space. It is a passive-aggressive but extremely effective tactic.
Such encounters can sometimes escalate into rude intransigence or even violence. In the past few years alone, men and women have been stabbed, escorted off of airplanes by federal marshals, pepper-sprayed in movie theaters, ejected from concert halls, and deliberately rammed with cars as a result of their bad behavior on their cell phones. The Zagat restaurant guide reports that cell phone rudeness is now the number one complaint of diners, and USA Today notes that “fifty-nine percent of people would rather visit the dentist than sit next to someone using a cell phone.”
...One possible solution would be to treat cell phone use the way we now treat tobacco use. Public spaces in America were once littered with spittoons and the residue of the chewing tobacco that filled them, despite the disgust the practice fostered. Social norms eventually rendered public spitting déclassé. Similarly, it was not so long ago that cigarette smoking was something people did everywhere—in movie theaters, restaurants, trains, and airplanes. Non-smokers often had a hard time finding refuge from the clouds of nicotine. Today, we ban smoking in all but designated areas. Currently, cell phone users enjoy the same privileges smokers once enjoyed, but there is no reason we cannot reverse the trend. Yale University bans cell phones in some of its libraries, and Amtrak’s introduction of “quiet cars” on some of its routes has been eagerly embraced by commuters. Perhaps one day we will exchange quiet cars for wireless cars, and the majority of public space will revert to the quietly disconnected. In doing so, we might partially reclaim something higher even than healthy lungs: civility.
...Cell phones provide us with a new, but not necessarily superior means of communicating with each other. They encourage talk, not conversation. They link us to those we know, but remove us from the strangers who surround us in public space. Our constant accessibility and frequent exchange of information is undeniably useful. But it would be a terrible irony if “being connected” required or encouraged a disconnection from community life—an erosion of the spontaneous encounters and everyday decencies that make society both civilized and tolerable.
Unfortunately, fewer and fewer people seem to base their public behavior on a concern for others. It's amazing to me that "no cell phones" signs like the one at a Santa Monica café I go to are necessary, and that I actually had to stop going to one place for a while because it's very small and I just couldn't take the cellular rudeness of some of the patrons (I constantly had somebody shouting at the back of my neck). When I ran into one of the servers who works there, and she asked me why I hadn't been around, she said she was going to ask the owner to put up signs banning use of cell phones inside.
Now, it's one thing if you live in the Arctic Circle, but it's about 65 degrees, year round, in Santa Monica. Is it really such a hardship for people to walk outside? And moreover, if you're going to go outside, and it's an outdoor cafe, maybe, just maybe, you should toddle down the block so the people at the outdoor tables don't have to become privvy to the details of your urinary tract infection.
Why is this not obvious to everybody? Sigh, I guess I answered that question above. Still, as I said once to a man shouting into his cell phone in a restaurant who responded to my entreaty to pipe down by snapping that there was no sign posted banning cell phones in the place: "There's no sign here either, saying you shouldn't urinate in the middle of the floor, but somehow, you manage to find your way to the toilet, now don't you?"
I guess I have to apply my favorite quote about common sense to common courtesy: "If it were so common, everyone would have it."
That whole article is one of the many reasons I didn't have a cell phone until just recently. The only reason that I have one now is so that I can communicate with my daughter who just left for college and is four hours away. Even then, my husband carries the matching one to hers, and I carry a prepaid (that used to be hers), that is only turned on when I need to call someone.
It's really crazy, but if you pay attention to the other people driving on the street, over half of them have a cell phone stuck to their face. It amazes me that there aren't more accidents!
I figure if you really want to get in touch with me, you can call me at home.
Charlotte at August 23, 2005 6:38 AM
Christine Rosen writes:
When people discuss things face to face in public, they tend to be aware of their surroundings. Most people, if they must have discussions like that, speak in lowered voices with furtive glances about them to make sure no one is privy to their conversation.
The public cell phone user, since the medium doesn't allow for hushed tones, is free to bray loudly and discuss whatever he wants to discuss.
Patrick the cynic at August 23, 2005 7:34 AM
I think the most obnoxious trend I've been experiencing over the past few years is having people bloviating away on the ridiculously mundane details of their lives, while standing directly behind you in the supermarket line.
We also have this problem on the transit lines here, where you cannot escape the constant blaring of personal details and the like, all while sitting less than 4 inches away from said blabberers.
Amy, I was curious as to your stance on perfectly healthy people pulling into handicapped spaces, when they are plenty of other spaces available, albeit a few yards farther away. When I've confronted some individuals on this seemingly - increasing behavior, they've just responded that "they're only going into the store for a few minutes, and no one's using this space anyway."
They should be beaten with sticks.
Dmac at August 23, 2005 7:46 AM
One solution: Before takeoff on an airplane a couple years back, the (not so) gentleman beside me in first class was yammering away on his cell phone. He was discussing shutting down a branch of his business, and how to do it before the union got wind of it. I jotted down what he was saying -- I could easily figure out the company and his position -- presented him with the information once he hung up and asked for comment, since I am a journalist and knew this could be a story. He said: This was a private conversation. I said: Obviously not. And I warned him to beware people who might be listening in the future. Now I regularly comment to people on their relationships, medical problems, whatever, as soon as they hang up. I figure that might help them get the idea.
Newcomer at August 23, 2005 8:27 AM
I've always been amazed at people who claim shouted conversations are "private" and are outraged when you comment.
I really need to get over be amazed at the stupidity of people.
Deirdre B. at August 23, 2005 1:37 PM
The cell-phone business is exceptionally bad on aircraft. Not only will you miss the safety lecture if you are blabbing while the flight attendant is talking - and cause someone else to miss parts of it at least - the March '04 issue of CIO magazine says that cell-phone interference has appeared to affect airliner control systems.
Radwaste at August 23, 2005 2:39 PM
They should be beaten with Carrot Top.
Newcomer, you're my kind of girl/boy/hermaphrodite. I've done that, too. I once called a woman and left her a message that she'd just dispensed her number, address, and time 30 seven-year-olds were going to be at her place for a birthday party, and while I wasn't a pedophile, maybe she should think abou that the next time she's SHOUTING AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS INTO HER CELL PHONE in Starbucks!
One of my new favorite things to do is to turn to the person behind me and start reading the paper aloud. The other thing I like to do is break into the discussion. "How fascinating! No...you don't say!"
Amy Alkon at August 23, 2005 3:53 PM
I actually did use the tactic of commenting on some schmuck's cell phone blather regarding his plans on taking his company public, by reminding him that he could be in violation of about three tenets of the SEC codes pertaining to the "quiet period" before an IPO.
He just expressed outrage, and proceeded onto his next inane call. There are those who will just not get it, no matter what you do sometimes.
Dmac at August 23, 2005 5:22 PM
"Social norms eventually rendered public spitting declasse"
Only of tobacco. Spitting gum onto the public sidewalk seems to be perfectly okay with most people, judging by the number of blackened gum blobs seen on any typical city street.
LYT at August 23, 2005 6:16 PM
Why is it that (seemingly) 90% of the time I spot somebody driving like an idiot, he or she has a cell phone clamped to his or her ear?
I'll leave it to you to guess how many are driving SUVs.
Todd Everett at August 23, 2005 6:25 PM
Our company used to have a serious issue with cell phones. Coworkers would not only get calls during meetings that would disrupt the meetings, but take frequent calls at their desks that they wouldn't have taken if it had went through the company's phone lines (which can be monitored). Not only that, but as you walk through the halls, you'd frequently hear deafening ringtones of various persuasions echo down the halls. Most notably was one's "take me out the ballgame" ringtone that could be heard by people on the floor below. Eventually our company, for security reasons, banned camera-phones and digital cameras from being brought in. At the same time, they banned recieving or making cell phone calls of any sort while in the building, which requires people to take it outsie -- just like the smokers. The halls have been noticeably quieter since.
jnichol at August 24, 2005 9:36 AM
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