Everybody has one or more pet peeves they feel strongly about. I am no exception. Here’s one that no doubt you are encountering as well on a daily basis, which is the downright obnoxious, funny and sometimes dangerous use of cell phones.
To me, cell pones are one of those inventions that can make your personal and business life easier by being able to follow up on important issues on the spot. However, cheap phones and endless talking plans seem to have reversed the benefits for many by turning them into addicted phone slaves.
The obsessive use of cell phones is ever present especially with the younger generation (I hate it when I sound like my dad). What is so important about answering a phone during the middle of a meal while having lunch or dinner with a friend?
Because of the total disregard for privacy by most cell phone users, I have been forced into having to listen to many conversations, and I can assure you that 99% of them are not worth the free cell phone time.
Not too long ago, I was driving out of a housing tract and was stuck behind a sports car. In it I noticed a young lady with her left arm hanging out the window holding a cigarette while being on the cell phone using her right hand while, at the same time, attempting to make an illegal left turn onto a highway. Since it was late model 3-series BMW, there is a good chance that it had a stick shift, but I can’t be sure. What a talent.
Why is it that most people have the incredible urge to place a phone call the very moment they get into their car and have to back out of a tight parking spot? What is so important to discuss on the phone for a mother, attending to her 2 young children who are strapped into the back of her high end 2-ton SUV while barreling down the freeway at 70 miles per hour?
Or, enter the twilight zone as I did a few months ago at my Huntington Beach office when I went to the restroom. I was speechless when I heard a guy sitting in the stall talking on the cell phone. It might have made sense to me if he had a sudden brain storm as to how to solve global warming or a host of other issues that ail the world. But since his conversation started with “hey man, how you doin?” this was obviously not the case.
It seems that no matter where I go, people constantly eye their cell phones in nervous haste almost out of fear that they might have missed a message. At the gym, at the beach, in a sports bar, in a fine restaurant, or any other event, phone phobia is ever present.
Why?
My personal opinion is that this addiction stems from a need to be constantly entertained, which has reached ridiculous proportions. I believe that the younger generation has a downright fear of silence. They don’t know, or have not learned, the simple pleasure of sitting at a beautiful spot, like the beach or the mountains, reading a good book and enjoying the sounds of nature.
Or, what about simply silently sitting in this type of environment and thinking? Yes, sitting and thinking about things that matter without TV, iPod or cell phone.
Has that become a lost art?
Comments 2
I agree with you Ulli.
I have beeen shopping in stores and hear women on their cel phones talking about things that are not important such as taking their cat to the vet etc.
Yesterday in church a cel phone went off and of course nobody answered it or turned it off so that nobody would know it was their phone. WHY bring a cel phone to church??? Why not leave it in the car as they aren’t going to answer in anyhow during church.
You are correct, it is an obsession for some.
I agree, my daughter & son-in-law stay on their phone – they can’t come home for a visit (which is a six hour drive) without laptops and cell phones going all the time. If they put there laptops away then it must be time to go! Sometimes I wonder way they come at all maybe I should just have them call – I’d proably at least get to talk to them a bit!