Half-conversations
Comments: 3
Mobile phones have filled the streets with half-conversations. Regular old public telephones (remember those?) tethered people to a little bubble of half-conversation space or enclosed them completely in glass boxes. Mobile phones have unleashed half-conversations and now they’re everywhere.
People walk past my window talking to someone on their phone or approach from behind on the street and it always takes me a second to realise they’re not talking to themselves. There’s always a split-second of “Uh-oh – crazy person.”
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Posted to General Rants • 2002.09.16 (Mon) • 23:43
Comments
Posted by Christopher Walker 2002.09.17, 03:26
Just because they’re carrying mobile phones doesn’t mean they aren’t crazy.
Posted by Mary Beth 2002.09.17, 09:06
I don’t have a mobile phone but that’s another story.
My comment on them is this - I’m never quite sure what to do when talking with a customer in our store and they take a phone call. I think that’s so rude! I’m tempted to keep talking and when I’m done just walk away. I generally wait a minute or two (having backed up a bit to “respect their privacy”) and then leave. But really! Most of the time they don’t even excuse themselves. So the message is that the phone is #1 at all times.
Ick.
Posted by jh 2002.09.17, 15:18
Christopher — Well said! In fact there may be evidence to suggest mobile phones are inducing a new form of craziness. Several friends (otherwise well-adjusted people) have told me that they just don’t feel right if they leave the house without their phones; they feel like something essential is missing, they get nervous, they feel vulnerable.
Now I can perfectly understand the utility and convenience of mobile phones, but isn’t this verging on some sort of incommunicado neurosis?
Mary Beth — the “phone is #1 at all times” mentality drives me up the wall. It’s certainly rude, yes, but it’s an extreme form of rudeness in that it doesn’t just come from disrespect (or even a momentary lack of cencentration) but from a fundamental reorganisation of a set of priorities which we generally consider form part of civilised (or at least socialised) behaviour. There is (or was) a hierarchy of communications based on certain rules.
For example, real live people come before telephone calls unless the call is in progress (in which case we wait or come back later or leave a note). Or, we apologise for having to take an urgent call and excuse ourselves from the setting (go to another room, the hallway, walk outside) and then apologise again upon returning.
That the hierarchy and etiquette will evolve over time is to be expected, but that the changes are occuring so quickly and in the most selfish directions is curious.
When I used to carry a mobile phone, I would never answer it in front of other people. I might glance at the screen to see if was an important call (if I was expecting one) but otherwise I would just let it ring, knowing that the caller could leave a message if necessary and I would call them back as soon as I could.
The weird thing was that people would stop talking, expecting me to answer the phone in preference to letting them finish their sentence. There was consistent bewilderment that I would ignore a phone call ahead of an immediate conversation. Eventually I just turned off the phone’s ring tone and checked messages periodically.
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