I own a pre-paid cell phone that I will use in emergencies, such as
being in my truck and it stops running someplace. It is, other than
that, a royal pain. Four people have the number, but I have to clear
about five wrong number missed calls and twenty-plus spam messages off
it per week.
So I was predisposed to think poorly of
the behavior of the gentleman dining a couple of tables away from me
last week. He was at lunch with his wife, and three times during the 20
minutes we were in proximity to each other his phone went off.
The
first problem was the ring tone. It was the startup of a jet engine,
set at a volume audible across the restaurant. I'm sure that sounded
like a neat idea when he thought of it -- "Hey, a jet engine ring tone!
Cool!" But speaking as someone who was near it, I have to strongly
disagree. If my phone rings loud enough to disrupt your conversation,
I am being rude to you.
The other problem didn't
affect me, but I wonder at what point we decided that it was OK to
interrupt time spent with someone across a table from us to talk with
someone else on the phone? As I mentioned, the phone rang three times
during the couple's meal, meaning that three times their interaction was
placed on hold to address other matters. The gentleman's voice carried
well enough that I could tell his side of the conversation didn't sound
like he was directing life-saving efforts that required his immediate
attention. Despite my online persona, I'm actually a pretty laid-back
guy...but I would have finished my meal and said "We're done" if my
companion or conversationalist answered three cell-phone calls
during our time.
I appreciate the benefits of cell
phones and I'm amazed at how technology has enabled us to maintain and
develop connections across great distances. But when we make our
face-to-face interactions pay for them we can send a message to the
people we're actually around all the time, one that says their
importance isn't as great as that we attach to the people on the other
end of the phone.
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