Um, I have no idea who these people are. I just used google image search--restaurant cell phones--to find the picture, which was pretty darned close to what I had in mind.
I explained to MF this weekend that a pet peave of mine is folks talking on their cell phones in restaurants. Or during meals generally. Or, really, while sitting anywhere with another person or people. It used to make me laugh when I saw two people in a car, both chatting on cell phones. Lately, though, it makes me sad.
Year before last, Biggy and I went to the beach sans kids--a nice, romantic get-away...One morning, we went to a quaint local diner for breakfast. As I sat waiting for my coffee, I noticed that at EVERY table, someone was on the phone. Wives sat silently, looking out at the surf as their husbands talked to someone else; husbands ate their grits in silence as their wives chattered and gestured over their waffles; parents rolled their eyes at each other as their teens ran up their minutes.
It was such an apt metaphor for what's not-nice about our culture, our never-satisfied-with-what-we-have consumer tendencies. Lest I get busted for sounding like my what's-the-world-coming-to students I've blasted before, let me say--again--that I have no problem with the devices themselves. Cell phones are awesome. The internets is awesome. Even that gadget with the most potential for abuse, the crackberry, is awesome. But we've got to evolve our manners with the technology.
We've got to remember that the very real people in the room with us are important and worthy of our complete attention.
3 comments:
Amen, sister!
Don't tell the good folks at Cingular I'm saying this but that is my number one pet peeve. Far and away. There's actually a clinical term for it: present absence. And you see it soooo often everywhere - someone sitting sadly, silently while someone yacks away. Since when did someone on the other end of a little squeaky-sqwauky thing become more important than someone in the flesh? I still think the phone's primary purpose is to simply arrange in-person meetings. Long calls should really be made when one is relatively alone.
Oh yeah, that and I hate phones in general.
When I worked at Octane, it was all laptops and cellphones. I know its technically a home-away-from-office to a lot of people, but I couldn't help feeling like all of those people were missing out on a chance to chat up the people next to them, find out something new or even network.
Sad.
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