People used to say the same thing about the old-fashioned, nailed-to-the-wall, one-per-house telephone. I can recall, back in the '60s, reading all kinds of things about telephone manners. Party lines in particular were a constant source of manners tension. And we've all heard the story about how the first phone companies originally hired teenage boys to work their operator boards, but got a lot of complaints from subscribers about rude operators (what a surprise!), so they started hiring women instead.

I wonder if there were complaints back in the day about telegram rudeness. Wouldn't surprise me, especially given that telegraph services used to charge by the word and so many people made their messages as clipped as possible.

In a way, the cell phone's nature is partially responsible for the rudeness.

In phone booths, one had a small amount of privacy and could carry on a conversation or change into one's superhero outfit without disturbing those around one - that is if one could ignore the urine and feces left there by the homeless.

With a cell phone, the call comes in whether one is in a private area or not. And if one cannot get to an area with some privacy, one has no choice but to impose, to some degree, upon those around one.

The degree of rudeness is in the degree of the imposition.

What we need is a portable phone booth. I hear some guy named Clark Kent is working on it.

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I wonder if there were complaints back in the day about telegram rudeness. Wouldn't surprise me, especially given that telegraph services used to charge by the word and so many people made their messages as clipped as possible.

Probably less so, as the telegraph required a specialized operator and the message was translated before being released. Rude comments between operators could be edited out.

"With a cell phone, the call comes in whether one is in a private area or not. And if one cannot get to an area with some privacy, one has no choice but to impose, to some degree, upon those around one."

Just wanted to call attention to some history. One of the casualties of the drug war was the telephone booth.

Police first removed the ability to take an incoming call, and then removed them all together in poor neighborhoods, because drug dealers were using them to hook up.

Talk about unintended consequences.

As I say elsewhere in the book:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/402368547930974074/

Can hardly wait for it to upload to my Kindle tomorrow!

As I say elsewhere in the book:

True. We could all benefit from letting more cell phone calls go to voicemail.

By its nature, the cell phone is intrusive. The rudeness lies in how we choose to respond to cell phone intrusions.