I meant to add: I am only find cell phone use rude when the user is “double-tracking”. Like, if I’m talking to you, I don’t want you looking at your phone at the same time. You may be listening to me 100%, but it is hard for me to believe this when your eyes aren’t looking at me. However, I don’t find it rude if you leave the room to check your phone or if you put your phone down once I start talking to you.
Dinsdale, what’s up with you and your venting about your kids and their spouses presumed rude behavior? This seems to be a common theme with you.
Trust me, your kids and their spouses are normal. This is a generational thing. It’s not against you personally.
When I’m out with people, even at a meal, I glance at my phone every few minutes (10 to 30 minute intervals probably) to see if there is a text or missed call. Usually there isn’t and I put it down. The habit started in the early days of cell phones when something serious happened with one of my daughters and they couldn’t reach me. When I finally looked at my phone, there were about 15 missed calls. With old parents and kids who sometimes need something, I check often. I don’t check email or do other things, just glance at the screen and put it down. I’m much more relaxed knowing nothing is amiss.
I was wondering the same thing. When I see the name “Dinsdale” I think “oh this is guy who doesn’t like his kids.”
What’s up with me is I often find myself uncomfortable in various social situations. I’m interested in having the best relations possible w/ my family. My immediate family members are pretty much the only people I give a damn about, so that is likely why I often ask about them.
These boards are a good opportunity for me to get a wide range of input, to assist me in assessing my and others’ behavior. I can consistently rely on some jerks stopping by to say some uncharitable things. Which is fine. Thanks for serving that function in this thread!
For me, this falls into the camp of ‘trying to second guess what people think of you’ which is an emotionally dangerous game to play. If someone doesn’t get back to me for a while, I’ve conditioned myself not to think they are screening my calls, but rather they just have something more important for them personally to do at that time. And that is totally fine.
I often don’t respond directly to a text - it doesn’t mean I’m screening calls. It frequently just means that I’m in the middle of something, and I want to respond when I’ve got time and head space to give a proper response. Because let’s face it, all this constant phone checking (which we can all be guilty of), doesn’t really count as concentrated study. It’s mindless habit 90% of the time. We don’t take in much of what we look at.
Wait, we’ve got a person who admits to letting their phone just sit without any power because they don’t use their phone that much, getting irked that sometimes when they send a text message to someone who DOES use their phone, they don’t get a response back right away? I mean, maybe they’re giving YOU the same courtesy you give THEM. If you want a prompt response how about you keep track of your phone and give them the same prompt response? In my personal life, I will not go out of my way to treat someone better than they treat me. Consider how you are treating the people you text. You say that you respond back within a day, but I seriously doubt that if you let your phone sit without any battery. That usually only happens if you leave it without charging it for more than a day.
This whole idea of “checking your phone” seems incredibly outdated. My phone is almost always either on me or in my immediate vicinity because it’s used for so much more than simple calls, so when I get a call or text I know right then. There is no need to “check it” every so often.
I don’t get that many calls or texts so it really is not a big deal to look and see who it is, and all I have to do is glance at my watch. I don’t see how it’s any different than if someone taps you on the shoulder while you are doing something. You wouldn’t turn around to see who it is?
This is an excellent point. I don’t expect people to respond rapidly to my emails or texts because I know good and well I don’t respond rapidly to emails or texts. It doesn’t even matter to me if I know the person I’m waiting to hear back from is constantly on their phone. Maybe they are constantly on the phone with other people who are constantly on their phone. The squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that.
Between texts, Facebook notifications, Imgur notifications, weather alerts, Reddit notifications, calendar reminders, etc, my phone vibrates every couple of minutes. I check my notification screen every so often to see if anything needs a response.
Don’t phones have the ability to assign individual ringtone and vibration settings to your contacts anymore? I get so few calls/texts I don’t bother anymore, but my old Nokia’s could do that. I’d use different settings by importance of the caller.
Do you want active notifications for all that? You can turn those off. YMMV, and all that.
Yeah - that is sorta what I was wondering. Does a frequent phone user feel other frequent users’ contacts deserve priority? Or do they think an unusual contact from a Luddite gets priority or gets deferred?
Always useful to get info from folks whose practices/preferences differ from mine.
My phone is almost always on silent.
Yes, I do. Depending on what I’m doing I can ignore or or read them. 
I have to imagine that if you’re constantly talking to someone (whether it’s via texting, email, or phone), then your relationship with them is pretty close. If you only have sporadic conversations with someone, the relationship is probably not that close. So it makes perfect sense why a “constant conversational partner” would have higher priority over someone you only talk to occasionally.
Mine too. But I have an iWatch, so get jabbed in the wrist if someone is trying to get in touch.
I know a woman who works at a homeless shelter. She told me there are people there who are homeless because they are so addicted to being on the phone tht they cannot work. And the store I work at has fired people for texting instead of working.
The lil’wrekkers iPhone is lighting up every few minutes. She’s in constant contact with several friends. I don’t know how she thinks or at least try to pay100% attention to whats going on around her. It’s how they ( young folks) are nowadays. Personally my brain is such I can’t do it. I can multi-task, but not with technology buzzing, vibrating or ringing all the time. And I don’t know anyone I want to be in constant conversation with. Nope, not one.
And? There are people who are homeless because they’re addicted to alcohol, and people have been fired for drinking on the job. Neither of those is a reason to ban having a glass of wine with dinner.