‘I find mobile phone use by many is outrageously rude’

Hell is being on a bus or train with some phone addict talking loudly, informing us what he had for breakfast, then he tells the whole bus or carriage what he will do when he gets home, which stop is next, what mate ‘Hendo’ did after the footy last week, where he lost his undies, and whether he can get it on with Fiona next week. Illuminating information but makes me grind my teeth.

How many times do we get a full volume account of a life we have no interest in? Too darned often, I think.

In shops I have seen people with a phone to their ear pointing to a coffee, and making no other contact with the staff, which is just rude. Bad manners are rife though, and a lot of phone users are simply ignorant of manners, it is not a consideration in their book. What happened to “May I have a coffee, please?” The closest they get is a grunt, “Latte”.

Probably the nastiest example was a young mum, with a four- or five-year-old boy with her shopping in a large grocery store, she had her phone clamped to her ear and was talking non-stop. I watched as the quiet and well behaved little boy tried a couple of times to talk to her, he was polite and not asking for anything, yet he was ignored. As I watched, she continued talking, all through her shopping and while she was going through the checkout, not engaging at all with staff. The poor little boy looked sad and it made me even more sad. The example he was being shown? “You are not important, the phone is”.

At restaurants I’ve watched as whole tables peer at their screens, hardly talking to the other each other, and then out in the street, crowds move through town all with heads down. Sometimes they even walk into the traffic like this, or crash into a pole.

I have a mobile phone and I do use it, but it does not rule my life. I check it when I wake, and make calls, check the bank statements, and emails, then it goes back in my bag. I can live an almost normal life without it. Amazing isn’t it?

We do need to be in touch these days, and the phone is a wonderfully convenient and helpful tool, but we have allowed it to take over our lives, to be such important we can’t function without being joined to it. It is robbing us of social connections. I know technology is wonderful and I love the time I can spend talking on Facetime to our daughter in the United Kingdom. I like the information I can gather with a few clicks, the many connections to friends overseas, but I ‘ration’ my phone use, and stay off it as much as possible when we meet friends. If I am home alone I might go in and view a program I missed. That is when I am alone, not with others, my friends deserve better. The shopkeepers deserve better too. We need to be aware and treat others with respect. Phone etiquette is a subject that needs to be addressed, before we lose touch with all reality.

What’s your relationship with your mobile phone like? ASre you frustrated by bad phone etiquette?

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