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Cellphone users 'too loud'
12/08/2005 07:59 - (SA)
Washington - The complaints are familiar and frequent: People on cellphones talk too loudly, they use them at inappropriate times, and they just don't seem to care if they are bothering anyone.
According to the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, nearly two-thirds of Americans use a cellphone, which means getting out of reception range to avoid those irritating habits.
Etiquette expert Judith Martin, also known as Miss Manners in her newspaper column, has a simple explanation for Americans' fascination with cellphones.
"It's like children getting new toys," she said. "But the excitement is over. People should be over it."
Another etiquette expert, Marjabelle Young Stewart, said cellphones appeal to our inner rock star. "I think that it's making a lot of people feel cool if they drive around with this microphone," she said.
Quiet places such as movie theatres, opera houses, orchestra halls and live theatre venues are now compelled to remind patrons to turn off their cellphones before a performance.
Some churches in Mexico have installed short-range cellphone signal jammers to thwart members of their flock who lack cellphone self-control during mass.
The jammers have caught on in Japan, India and France, but their use is illegal in the United States.
While some are clamouring for cellphone restraint, cellphone companies are lobbying the Federal Aviation Administration to permit cellphones on commercial airline flights.
But in a poll by the Association of Flight Attendants and the National Consumers League, 63% of respondents wanted to keep current restrictions in place.
Martin compared the evolution of the cellphone to that of the answering machine. She said when people first got them, "they were misusing them, doing their comedy routines and otherwise boring their friends."
After a few years, the novelty wore off and an answering machine protocol set in, she said.
But new features for cellphones just keep on coming, so the novelty never seems to wear off.
For every cultural niche, there is a cellphone feature. Perhaps most likely to raise eyebrows is the "moan tone". Instead of a catchy ditty or an electronic symphony, cellphone rings can now be programmed with a recording of a porn actor making sexual noises.
Both Martin and Stewart said people need to pay attention to common-sense etiquette rules to govern their behaviour with cellphones and other electronic devices.
- AP
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