PDX cell phone users: shut up and think!!
Of course I have a cell. I even blog about the stuff.
I take it with me, but only turn it on when I need to. Why?
I like to hear myself thik.
When I am on the bus, or the MAX, or in the mall, or walking downtown, and I see and hear everyone on their cell, I overhear much of the banter.
95% is not necessary:
“I’m here now,” “we’re gonna meet at Kirsten’s house,” “you won’t beleive what happened in math class, ” “did you hear who she’s seeing,” “chanterelles or portabellos, hun?”
BFD/ It ain’t important.
Kid scrapes a knee, “my car broke down and here’s my AAA number,” “biopsy is back and its only an ovarian cyst..” “the Realtor called and we might have a bid,” now that’s important.
Face it. Most cell conversations are unnecessary. I wonder, with all of us yacking on the cell all the time, what happens to those quiet moments? Have we forgotten how to think? In solitude?
Why do we always need to stay in communication with others - to the complete exclusion of communicating with ourselves?
Thoreau wouldn’t have yacked on a cell phone. Might have had one, but would have only used it in emergencies?
So why do you need to?
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yeh, i have to agree sometimes when in public. now, when walking down the street, i don’t think that’s too bad.
you could always get shhhh cards and pass them out to obnoxious users. at restaurants, i give people dirty looks when they answer their phones.
SHHH cards: http://www.coudal.com/shhh.php
I’d have to agree here. I have a cell phone, and it sees very little use…mostly txt messaging, just so others don’t have to hear my communications.
We’re a society of socialites. Heaven forbid we actually enjoy the silence for once, or maybe *not* tell half the world that our friend’s brother’s cousin cheated on his wife.
If it makes you feel any better, cell phone usage is much worse in other major cities. I find it’s pretty tame in Portland, most people prefer reading a book on the train, to gabbing on their cell phone. Still, the annoying numbers are constantly on the rise.
This subject has been pretty well covered I think. It’s a different method of operating in our world. You see the cell as just a mobile telephone, but people are using it as more of a way to expand their existence. You can include far-away friends in things that are happening. Your friends don’t have to be right there with you… it’s like having a tele-presence.
When you think of the cell more like an extension of yourself, able to project you to other places and bring others with you, then it’s much less of a nuisance.
It’s like the idea of pinging. Telling someone “you won’t believe what happened in math class” is less about what actually happened in math class and more about making a connection to the person on the other end of the phone. It’s telling them that you are thinking of them and you value them.
Cell phones are an integral part of the new social fabric. I recommend embracing it. :)
This reminds me of a line from the Robbie Robertson album “Contact From the Underworld of Redboy”. I don’t remember the line exactly. Something like, “This is the kind of silence that scares the white man.”
Do we fear silence because it means we’ll have to think?
Mikey, you’re all wet.
Your observations are true, but the motive behind why some people need to be on cell phones 18 hours a day is wrong. Many people have a deep psychological need for the affirmation and attention that comes from constant contact with others. The contact is like crack to these people, addictive, with withdrawl symptoms happening when they don’t have human contact for, say, more than 30 minutes.
The original essay here is fundamentally correct. There is a time and place for human interaction, and same for quiet introspection. Different people have different balances for this, but fundamentally people who are constantly on the phone everywhere they go have some major unfulfilled needs.
You are correct that this is the way that society is going, but joining the bandwagon just to be “with it” is WRONG WRONG WRONG. I work for Oregon’s largest high-tech company and have always had a cell phone. I receive far more calls than I make, because people want and need to reach me for my job, and I’m often travelling or otherwise not at my desk. (I’m lucky to spend more than 30 work-related minutes a day on my cell phone, perhaps 5 minutes of personal time).
But what I hear people talking about when I catch snatches of conversation is ABSOLUTELY ridiculous and unnecesary. People are using the cell phone as a crutch for the rest of their miserable lives. I WILL NOT join that “revolution” whatever it is — I don’t crave the attention of others. I can entertain myself with a book, my nightly 6-mile walk, or an hour on the web educating myself on some topic of interest far better than any friend of acquaintence at the other end of a scratchy, fading in and out, cell phone connection.
Thank you very much.
Not that you know that they’re on 24/7. Just the thirty seconds as you pass them. What about parties? Gossip? It’s much faster to pass key datum around as soon as you get ‘em, not to mention that it’s much easier now to keep in contact with folks you don’t see at work or school every day and hook up, hang out, see them.
I want to see a breakdown by age. Mike at I are well-connected, young PDXers (Mike more so than I) and I suspect that the nay-sayers are somewhat older and less wired.
I’m not sanctioning obnoxious conversations. Most cellphone microphones are pretty good nowadays. I talk quietly because I don’t want people to overhear what I’m talking about, but it has the side effect of creating an image of me as a cell user, not as an obnoxious asshole forcing my conversation on everyone.
Things were so much better in the old days, weren’t they?
PS, Betsy, your link is broken.
Well, at least in my case I’m late 30s, have owned a cell phone since 1989 (that’s when they were VERY expensive to own and much more a status symbol than anything else), and as I said work for the largest high-tech company in Oregon. I’m probably 2-3x more wired than you are, my friend !! It’s in part, my job to be. You can always tell the hard-core cell phone idiots because they’re walking around like Terminator-robot wannabes with their Bluetooth headsets permanently stuck in their ears. Nothing to me makes a person more unapproachable and standoffish than a headset in their ear, even when they’re not using it. Or they’re sitting on MAX or standing on a street corner fiddling with their text messaging or Blackberries (that and the Treo are the new status symbol). Whatever. Needy people, all.
The worst are those phones with the walkie-talkie feature. Every five seconds–beep beep! And their users are even more oblivious to others’ annoyance than the average cell phone user.
Cell phones are an amazingly convenient addition to modern life that can also be exquisitely annoying. For me, the annoying part is hearing other people’s uncensored and time-passing conversations in public spaces… and the ringing, for God’s sake, the ringing!
The advantages are extreme. In no particular order or level of completeness: safety, fewer important calls missed, unimportant calls more easily avoided, getting directions while in your car, ‘I’m at the store…what kind of beer/paint color/pipe fitting was I supposed to get?’, teens leaving the landline/dsl open, etc.
But I don’t think everyone necessarily talks on the phone more…we just see them (us) doing it in public more often. Our ‘home space’ has expanded outside the home and etiquette is still adjusting. My sense is that public cell phone nuisances have plateaued (sp?) or declined relative to the explosive growth of cell phone use. In other words, I think that society is reaching a consensus as to what the unspoken rules of public cell phone use are, and most people now follow these ‘rules.’
The constant noise in our lives isn’t limited to cell phones. It is a cultural reality of our industrialized society. It’s tv, radio, commercialization, ipods, cell phones, computer games, et al. We almost have as many speakers around us as 4 digit PINs we can’t memorize. And though it seems like I may be ranting, I’m really only babbling to fill your ears with more mental noise. I watch tv and listen to the radio. I self medicate with movies and lose myself in video games. And I talk on my cell phone…but I like to keep it out of the public ear.
How it it any worse than listening to anyone’s regular conversation? Most conversation between people is well…useless. The distance between speakers is irrelevant. I don’t get it. It’s only half as annoying to me. I’d rather hear one bastard talking than two. Wear headphones or earplugs if you’re really that ¸bersensitive to sounds.
It can be worse because many people, despite what they think, talk louder than normal when speaking on their cell phone. Have you really never been subjected to someone’s projected ‘phone voice’ on a bus or in a coffee shop? I don’t know… something about it is annoying in a way that normal conversations aren’t. In certain indoor situations, that is.