foodworms.net for designers and web developers

Ask almost anyone, and they’ll tell you that cell phone etiquette — or lack thereof — is a problem. For that matter, telephone etiquette hasn’t been entirely sorted out yet, to the degree that encounters with sales clerks and receptionists constantly remind me. It’s just that it’s harder to escape cell phone users. I’m constantly irritated by some of the void conversations I hear on the bus or train, or just walking down the way, and sometimes astonished at how some people broadcast some pretty personal details because they think no more of they’re in public.

The excepting that thing that appalls me more than obnoxious cell phone callers are those who think they should determine if a call is a waste of time. “If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the help of other folks,” says James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. “The cellphone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights.” [The emphasis is mine.] That quote is from a New York Times article that ran yesterday on the use of cell phone jammers, which are illegal in the U.S. — end so small it’s near-impossible to enforce the prohibition against them.

Why do I emphasize the jammer, and not the obnoxious talker? Because numerous people who blab loudly on their small room phones don’t realize they’re doing it. The person using the jammer, on the other possession, makes a conscious decision that the other person’s conversation isn’t of influence then they embrace closely that button. Or they decide the other someone isn’t important. Read the article from single side and you’ll notice an interesting bent to the quotes from people jamming: “She was using the word ‘like’ all the time. She sounded like a Valley Girl.” “Just watching those dumb teens at the mall get their calls dropped is worth it. Can you hear me now? NO! Good.” And possibly the most telling: “At this point, just knowing I have the power to cut somebody off is satisfaction plenty.”

The same thing happened when I posted relating to a cheap cell phone jammer last January. I got a flurry of e-mail from people who said they’d passionate affection to receive one because of — I’m paraphrasing here — all the idiots out there. Clearly, these folks don’t realize that with or without solitary abode; squalid phones, most overheard confabulation fragments are inane.

But this is hardly a new phenomenon. When cell phone use was more expensive, people were quick to deride mobile talkers as self-important jerks. (Though I formerly had the pleasure of watching one person calamitous to act cool with his solitary abode; squalid phone get hilariously taken down by the girls he was trying to impress…) Now that cell phones are hackneyed, substitute “Bluetooth headset” for “cell phone” and you get the modern complaint. Also see: white earphones (iPod owners), and preceding that, any hint that you had a Walkman. There’s almost always a commix of classism, ageism, and occasionally a tinge of racism in these comments as well.

People just need to re-learn the art of being polite. Cell phone users have to realize that not aggregate conversations are appropriate at all times (you know, you can call someone back if you were in the middle of something besides), and would-be jammers have to realize that of the whole not private spaces are just that — public (would you tell someone to shut up if they were talking to someone session nearest to them, rather than upon the phone?). And sometimes a carefully timed tap on the shoulder and a polite reminder can receive the piece of work conferred as well as any $50 jammer.