The Cell Phone Phenomenon

CEBU, Philippines - Do you sometimes want to volleyball strike the passenger beside you who is talking loudly on his cell phone? Do you sometimes divert your itinerary for the day because of a call from your cell phone? Does smoke sometimes come out of your ears because while queuing to pay your groceries or ordering your meal in a fastfood chain, the cashier couldn’t complete transaction or the attendant couldn’t get the order because the person is still talking on the cell phone?

Wireless technology, specifically cellular phones, has begotten humanity what we hate to admit –cellular phones are making us lose politeness and have eroded our privacy. A little jukebox that vibrates and has many colors has enslaved us.

It does not take far to see how Cebuanos are losing their civility in cellular phone use in the loud way they carry conversations on their cellphones when in the jeepney, bus, church, movie houses, theatres and other public places. Has face-to-face conversation lost its sanctity that we carry intimate and emotional conversations on the cell phone where other people can hear? While on a bus, you can imagine what the girl has been doing with her male friend because from the tone of her conversation, they have not been merely playing Scrabble or Game of the General. While you don’t want to know as it’s none of your business, but she happens to sit beside you so that you feel like Grrr... spiking her cellphone.

Advance in wireless, regress in politeness.

Losing politeness protocol in the use of cellular phone has been an etiquette concern as far back as 2005 when a CNN story reported that advancing wireless innovation has made people regress in manners. “This world without wires allows technology to ride shotgun throughout daily life, which, for the most part, is a convenient and useful tool. But it’s the lack of a politeness protocol that has some up in arms,” the report read.

The same report quoted University of Wisconsin-Madison communications professor, Lew Friedland, to have said that rudeness has deteriorated in public spaces. He calls the lack of manners a kind of unconscious rudeness because many people are not aware of what they are doing or the others around them.

Deterioration of politeness and privacy has prompted etiquette experts worldwide to designate July as National Cell Phone Courtesy Month. The Philippines though still has to adopt, much less, observe this month.

Notoriety in the wireless.

From an etiquette point of view, there are at least five most ill-mannered, most offensive and most notorious ways of using cellular phones. Number one is talking too loudly on the phone especially in public places like in a bus, airport, restaurant, church, conference in session, taxi or even in a funeral service. The cellphone was invented to pick up audible conversation but there are people who talk on a cellphone like they are commanding an airstrike with rapid gunfire in the background.

In a survey, it disclosed that 72 percent of Americans ranked loud conversation or “cell yell” as the poorest etiquette in cell phone use

Number two, holding inappropriate, emotional and personal conversations in public to someone you hate or love through cell phone and especially doing these while queuing to pay groceries, at the bank or while ordering a pizza. Number three, rudely interrupting conversations and meetings because you have to answer your phone or respond to a text message. Texting while talking to someone is horribly impolite. Yet senators and congressmen don’t mind being seen on television texting while the Senate or House is in session.

The etiquette rule is that if you are speaking to someone when your phone rings, turn it off and finish the conversation. It just does not make sense that you are enslaved by that little jukebox in your pocket than attend to the live, flesh and blood person in front of you. The next time a person interrupts a conversation simply because that person has to answer a cell phone, walk away.

Number four, keeping your ringer and vibration mode on with loud and annoying ringtones when attending church service, performances, conferences, meetings or solemn gatherings. You may not know it but someone in the crowd would like to volleyball spike your mobile because your loud ringtone of Macarena almost gave that person a cardiac arrest.

Number five, texting small talk. Does friendship and fellowship mean nothing? There are those who text things like “How r u?” “What’s up?” “What’s new?” These small talk are lame and pointless.

Rudeness is similarly committed when asked to turn off your cell phone while riding airplanes, attending cultural events, school graduations or during worship services. Putting the phone on vibrate mode is not “off”. Wireless technology is such that any calls or text messages you miss are logged on the phone that you can check or if it is a call, you can return the call later. Checking your phone while in church, conference, movie, theatre or auditorium is similarly unacceptable and aggravating to those around you.

To justify that you have to keep you cell phone in silent mode because of an emergency is not acceptable. In all likelihood, when there is an emergency, you cannot attend to that emergency because you are somewhere else. There will always be people around who can assist. 

It is shameful that wireless technology has made man regress to the impolite ways of the jungle. Still it is by self-will that man allows cell phones to invade and erode privacy.