 |
|
|
|
|
It's time for cell phone etiquette
By Lee Kucera
It has come to the attention of the cell-phone companies that there is a growing backlash against the widespread use of cellular phones in public. "Widespread use" may be an understatement. Show me a public space--restaurant, sporting event, shopping mall, retail store, supermarket, bank teller's cubicle, cashier's counter, golf course, hiking trail, airplane aisle, post office queue--and I'll show you a cell-phone user who hasn't figured out that instant gratification is less important than public civility. I don't exactly like where this argument is leading me. Is there any doubt that we live in a world where civility, public or otherwise, is dangling on a very thin thread compared to the lure of instant gratification? Still, some of us need to toe the line. Miss Manners would be pleased.
At any rate, the wireless phone companies are developing a protocol of etiquette for use of the tiny, ubiquitous cellular telephones. Well, it's about time somebody did. Among the public places that are deemed "inappropriate" for cellular phone use are--drrrumroll, please--lecture halls, classrooms, live performances, movies and, would you believe it, churches. For a nation of people whose country was founded upon the premise that certain things in life are self-evident, we have a remarkable capacity for overlooking the obvious.
My husband and I attended a wedding last Saturday afternoon, in a stately old church in Palo Alto. Just as the priest began to lead a prayer, someone's cell phone started to ring. Loudly. It kept on ringing. A few of the guests--who apparently, like me, wondered why on earth anybody with an IQ in three digits wouldn't turn the bleeping thing OFF under the circumstances for God's sake--glanced from left to right under lowered lids trying to discern the culprit. It turned out to be a small child, no older than 5 or 6, whose very own cell phone was tucked in her pocket, and who didn't know how to stop its ringing.
How is it that legions of otherwise intelligent people are so oblivious to the fact that it's rude to conduct the most trivial business of everyday life on cell phones in public places? One reason, I think, is that the breakdown of ordinary courtesies that has come to characterize American life is exacerbated by innovations in technology, which advance so quickly that guidelines for their use can't keep up with them. Maybe in such cases we could rely on common sense. What a concept. Common sense, that rare and antiquated commodity, dictates that the real-life person in one's physical space takes precedence over long-distance communication. That's why we turn off the TV when visitors arrive, and say "Excuse me" when we disengage ourselves from the presence of other humans to answer a stationary telephone. (What? We don't? Well, do it.)
And, speaking of stationary telephones, let's talk about call-waiting. My children hoot with laughter when I suggest that it's rude to keep one person standing with a dead phone held to an ear waiting for the other person to decide if the incoming caller who has interrupted their conversation with a call-waiting beep is more important than the one who was interrupted by it. I'm still trying to muster up the chutzpah to respond with a resounding "NO" to the inevitable "Oh, could you hold on for just a second?" that derails almost every personal phone conversation these days--and then hang up while a decision is being made to determine whether I matter more or less than the caller-waiting. See? Discourtesy breeds discourtesy.
I confess: I have a cell phone. It came with a two-for-one offer when we bought a wireless phone for our college daughter to use in case of car trouble on her five-hour drive home from school. Most of the time I forget to take mine with me. So far our daughter has used hers only for its designated purpose. That's good. I hope she never joins that ever-widening circle of people who make a common practice of standing in a public place, gazing off into nothingness, depreciating the individuals around them and the space they're standing in by deliberately disconnecting from both, and conducting utterly non-urgent business with a cell phone glued to one ear. And if she wants tuition to keep on coming, she'd better not put me on hold for call waiting either.
|
|
|
|
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
