Why the dislike of cellphones on the boards?

In My Humble Opinion
81

Now now, even I wasn’t sold at first, but I learned that a cell phone is not only very useful, but now practically indispensible to my life.

The camera function, for one. Take a snapshot anywhere, anytime, and if it doesn’t turn out okay, just delete it and try again. I can’t tell you how much time this has saved from writing things down from a TV screen or monitor.

Or the alarm clock function! A godsend, I tell you. Never have to wake up to some horrible song or annoying commercial again, nor worry about an inconvenient power failure.

:smiley: :smiley:

But seriously…yes, cell phone users can get annoying, but I haven’t noticed any appreciable spike in public annoyingness. The only thing that’s changed is the medium. As for the shouting, I think that has to do with making calls from places that generally aren’t suitable for making calls, i.e. places with lots of background noise. Whenever I have to make a call from a mall, I have to hunt as many as 10 minutes for a suitable location. Trust me, it’s not easy to be heard in a place like that, especially with other cell phone users in the vicinity who are also trying to be heard.

Me, I leave it on only if I want to be contacted for some reason, and anyone offended by this will just have to be offended.

(P.S. I’m not the only one using the alarm clock, camera, calculator, etc., am I? Be such a waste not to make good use of them.)

82

[QUOTE=MaxTheVool]
I guess my point is… what’s your point?
[/QUOTE]

My point is that I’m addressing the point the OP brought up.

Argue it with him. We’re on the same side.

83

I guess I just can’t identify with people who * have * to constantly be chattering with someone else. This vague discomfort intensifies into intense dislike when that person is navigating a huge SUV through a crowded parking lot while talking on the phone at the same time. (I work in a largish office park. At 5:00, there’s a constant stream of people driving out of the place with phones clapped to their ears.)

If someone is in a motor vehicle, I want them to be devoting every ounce of energy and every iota of attention to NOT hitting me.

84

[QUOTE=ArizonaTeach]
My personal feelings towards cell phone users is that far too many are rude and unthinking when it comes to usage, and are pretty darn close to addicts when it comes to their phone.
[/QUOTE]
Time: yesterday about 2pm. Place: basement hallway of my building, all cinderblock and echo-y.
One of our residents, a guy who produces TV ads for a living, was trumpeting away on his cel with some business contact, totally oblivious to the horrendous reverberating racket he was making thru the halls and the fact that taking the call in the echo-y basement made him so unintelligible to his caller that he had to talk that loud to be understood. No thought even for the person he was talking to at the bloody time.

And that, gentlemen, is what it takes to succeed in business these days and impress the hot babes.

85

[QUOTE=MaxTheVool]
However, for attempting to point out potentially positive, and even life-saving, benefits of having a cell phone, she was accused of being “one of the people who goes into anaphylactic shock without one in her ear every sec”. Which I find pretty hilarious, given that I’m taking as much of a pro-cellphone stance as anyone on the board in this thread and that one, and I make maybe 2 calls a week averaging maybe 45 seconds each.
[/QUOTE]

I’m sorry, but I must point out that your characterization (of ME, I might add) continues to be inaccurate. What I said was:

Note the if… then statement. IF you are someone who can’t understand why people might find the pervasive, irrational, and rude uses of cellphones might annoy people, THEN you are probably a cellphone addict. IF Diosa is not one of those people, if she only used her phone for traffic accidents and the like, THEN my statement doesn’t apply to her. No one said that, because she used her cellphone to get her out of a jam, she was a cellphone addict. The strident defense of cellphones that seems like people who doth protest too much. End of digression on ancient thread.

86

I don’t dislike cellphones. Mine is very useful because I keep forgetting to buy a watch so I just use my cell’s clock. I never have it on any setting but silent or vibrate and the few times I get calls, the person on the other end always asks if I’m sad because I speak so quietly. Those are the concessions I make and if that still offends anyone, too bad.

87

[QUOTE=Rubystreak]

Note the if… then statement. IF you are someone who can’t understand why people might find the pervasive, irrational, and rude uses of cellphones might annoy people, THEN you are probably a cellphone addict. IF Diosa is not one of those people, if she only used her phone for traffic accidents and the like, THEN my statement doesn’t apply to her. No one said that, because she used her cellphone to get her out of a jam, she was a cellphone addict. The strident defense of cellphones that seems like people who doth protest too much. End of digression on ancient thread.
[/QUOTE]

I agree that you are right as far as technical choice of precise clauses is concerned, but I strongly disagree with you when it comes to the connotations of your statement. However, we argued it out at great and non-productive length back then, so there seems no reason to bring it back up.

88

Plenty of people don’t carry a cell phone in the way that I don’t watch much TV. I DVR the stuff I really like, don’t bother with the rest, could frankly do without.

Some people don’t carry a cell phone in the way that some people Don’t Watch TV, Don’t Own a TV, or Only Watch Public Television. You know who I’m talking about.

89

[QUOTE=MaxTheVool]
I agree that you are right as far as technical choice of precise clauses is concerned, but I strongly disagree with you when it comes to the connotations of your statement. However, we argued it out at great and non-productive length back then, so there seems no reason to bring it back up.
[/QUOTE]

I said what I meant. You may choose to distort, interpret, and draw inaccurate conclusions about my intentions and “hidden” connotations if you wish. The inferences you draw are your own, not mine, though. I never intended to attack Diosa personally, just as my general dislike of current trends in cellphone usage and my feeling that people don’t need them as much as they think they do mean that they are evil and should be abolished. However, I do not see the annoying and dangerous behaviors being reversed or ended anytime soon either, so my concern and distaste towards them will continue to exist and I will continue to wish people could just turn them off or leave them home more often. I do have one and I do use it about once a month. I’m not a Luddite or anything.

90

[QUOTE=NightRabbit]
Hey, don’t leave your house if you can’t bear the conversations of others around you! I can talk about anything I want in public.
[/QUOTE]
Perfect example of the decline of common courtesy in modern society. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you’re not being rude and showing a lack of respect for the rights of others, if you do it.

As many, many, many others have said in this thread, the problem with cell phones is that they facilitate an enhanced level of rudeness. Someone by himself who, without a cell phone, might be sitting quietly is, with a cell phone, disturbing those around him by having a loud phone conversation. Two people sitting together would be talking in reasonable tones so that most people around them are not disturbed. But put each far away, talking on the cell phone, and again the conversation somehow has to be held at a near shout, disturbing people in TWO areas.

91

[QUOTE=MacTech]
I don’t get this “one upsmanship” with cell phones, it’s nothing more than a “Mine’s Bigger than Yours” contest, what’s the big deal, it’s just a bloody phone, an annoying, privacy-destroying, noisy, irritating phone
[/QUOTE]
But how is this different than a million other things people talk about? Cars? Televisions? Computers? CD or DVD collections?

People will always have these conversations. Do you only hate it when they do this with phones or when they do this with anything?

92

[QUOTE=interface2x]
But how is this different than a million other things people talk about? Cars? Televisions? Computers? CD or DVD collections?

People will always have these conversations. Do you only hate it when they do this with phones or when they do this with anything?
[/QUOTE]

I don’t “hate” the one-upsmanship thing per se, I just find it rather amusing is all…

I mean the manager getting jealous over a stupid little telecom device? it’s just a phone

then again, he does also tease me (in a good natured way) about how much “better” his Mazda 6 is than my Ion, trying to get a rise out of me (all in fun), I just look at him, do the Spock “eyebrow raise” thing and simply say, “that’s nice, what do you get for mileage again?..”

i think the fact that I don’t care, and he can’t get me to respond the way he’d like annoys him…

He’s definitely the stereotypical “phone addict” in this thread, heck, he even admitted to texting while driving…once, he quit because he almost hit another car

so, at work we have a phone-addict, and phone hater, it’s like matter and antimatter, really…

93

[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
I’ve been reading this thread on payphones becoming obsolete with interest, especially the number of replies from people who point out they don’t have a cellphone and like it that way.

I see this sentiment a lot on the boards- that cellphones are inherently a bad thing (like Fast Food and Tobacco) and that anyone who doesn’t have one is somehow superior to those that do.
[/QUOTE]

I’ll have to read that thread, now. Also, I’m posting to the OP before I read the rest of the thread. I’ll get to it, but I want to address that, first.

I don’t have a cell phone, and until my father’s condition recently got worse, I had no need of one. (Since I’m now spending 3 days a week, or so, being in the house with him, so he’s not alone, and driving his car because of his doubled vision, it makes sense for me to have a cell so I’m never out of touch, in case of an emergency - so I’m borrowing my father’s cell.) I don’t like them, because, frankly I’m enough of a curmudgeon that I like being left alone.

But that doesn’t mean that I feel a sense of superiority for not having one, or that people who do have one are inferior.

Having said that, there are a number of stereotypes of cellphone use that I find hugely annoying. When bus drivers can’t hang up or stop texting while driving their buses, it bothers me. When people are talking on them at a volume that forces everyone in earshot to hear their conversation, that bothers me. When someone insists on having their cellphone online and open to their SO during the work day, so that they can keep talking or just listen to each other, it creeps me right the fuck out.

But those are behaviors of specific cell phone users, not something I view as inherent to the cell phone itself.

However, I find it exceptional that the OP thinks that failing to have a cellphone is a sign of being some kind of (paraphrasing here) loser. I believe that there are good and bad reasons to get cells, and that there are good and bad reasons not to get them. You can’t make a judgment about a person’s reasons for their choices without hearing what their reasons are.

94

[QUOTE=Roadfood]
Perfect example of the decline of common courtesy in modern society. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you’re not being rude and showing a lack of respect for the rights of others, if you do it.

As many, many, many others have said in this thread, the problem with cell phones is that they facilitate an enhanced level of rudeness. Someone by himself who, without a cell phone, might be sitting quietly is, with a cell phone, disturbing those around him by having a loud phone conversation. Two people sitting together would be talking in reasonable tones so that most people around them are not disturbed. But put each far away, talking on the cell phone, and again the conversation somehow has to be held at a near shout, disturbing people in TWO areas.
[/QUOTE]
Concur. It isn’t about conversation. It is about volume, and in some cases, venue (e.g. movie theater). I carry a cell phone; it is a useful tool. If I need to make a call in public, and the recipient can’t hear me, I don’t raise my voice. I move somewhere quieter, or call back later (unless of course, the pregnant lady next to me is giving birth whil having an epileptic fit on a runway while jets are flying overhead…then I’ll yell).

The elevated NYC subway lines, as compared to the underground lines, are a good example. As an elevated line emerges from the depths, a dozen phones pop out and conversations start. Each of these people are now competing with the subway noise, our assigned subway philosopher, and the people already conversing in small groups (usually quiet except when school lets out). Afraid his/her message is not being heard, our intrepid philosopher begins to rant and rave with even greater volume, and those previously conversing don’t feel that they should stop, and the din grows. Compare this to the underground, where those away from our assigned philosopher can have normal conversations, because most people are traveling solo. I don’t know about others, but even though my iPod has noice-suppressing headphones, I no longer have a desire for permanent hearing loss and do not want to attempt to drown out the many loud conversations.

(That elevated car also has the advantage of having, usually, 3-6 different languages being used simultaneously - good practice for budding translators :cool: ).

95

After reading the thread - I think that one common theme from those who’ve posted about hating cell phones for themselves is that many of them have had or still have, jobs that involve answering phones as a regular duty.

I spent a year in a hospital billing office, answering the phones there. We had three lines coming in, and I hated that machine. I’d joke that it was a problem child - always demanding attention, and I never liked it all that much in the first place.

That job has left me with a life-long antipathy towards answering the phone. I use phones, but at my convenience. Until my father’s condition got where it is, there was never anything that I needed to be contacted for that was all that time sensitive. So, why would I choose to pay money I could ill afford for a device that would annoy me most of the time, and that I had no need for?

96

[QUOTE=Sublight]
Interesting, I can see why this would be annoying. Japan went the opposite route, with the result that you can immediately tell at a glance whether a number is a mobile phone or a land line. The problems you mention don’t seem to exist here, AFAIK.
[/QUOTE]

Didn’t most countries do this? Every cellphone number in Australia begins with 04, and in NZ it’s 02.

I’ve certainly a noticed a cultural difference with regards to volume of conversation on cellphones in Australia & NZ; I can’t say I’ve ever come across people SHOUTING INTO THEIR PHONES here and often wondered what on earth you guys were going on about.

When I visited the US last year, though, I did find it alarming to see people who did appear to be SHOUTING INTO THEIR PHONE. But then, I also got the impression that the only cellphone in Los Angeles was the Motorola V3 RAZR, which probably explains a lot too. :wink: (We had a lot of returns on that model with problems with the microphone and speakers etc)

Sure, you can use your phone for entertainment- lots of people do. I use mine to ring people and send/receive text messages. Sorry if so many of you are offended by the fact I can do that from somewhere besides my desk.

97

[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
Didn’t most countries do this? Every cellphone number in Australia begins with 04, and in NZ it’s 02.
[/QUOTE]

It’s done in Thailand. Cellphones begin with numbers that land lines don’t.

98

[QUOTE=brujaja]
I ride a bicycle. I don’t drive. 9 out of the last 10 drivers who almost hit me were talking on the phone. That’s my main objection; I’m not too keen on the microwaves either.

But to each his own. Just watch where you’re going, please.
[/QUOTE]

Do you have a cell phone? If you don’t have a cell phone because people who drive cars and use cell phones are reckless and you don’t even drive a car…well I can’t follow the logic.
I find it amusing that people argue that cell phones are more intrusive than old school land lines. “Back in the day” you didn’t have an answering machine. You couldn’t easily turn off your ringer. If you were waiting for a call you were at the mercy of the caller and basically stuck in your house until that person called. But now, being able to roam freely while still being reachable is somehow a burden on people.

I don’t feel awesome or superior because I have a cell phone. I don’t feel entitled. I’m still the same not-rude-in-public person I always was. But I do feel safer, more connected, and more free to go on my way and do my thing without waiting for someone to call.

99

[QUOTE=Larry Mudd]

Yes, this is a weird suggestion. I hate douchebag cell-phone behaviour as much as anyone, but I don’t see that as a reason to deny myself a reasonable level of telecommunications technology…

I wonder if people who make this argument feel compelled to disable their automobile horns, too?
[/QUOTE]

Your confusion is that no one is making that argument. At least, not as far as I can tell. In other words, disliking cell phones – more specifically, disliking the manner in which they are generally used – is a separate issue from why a person chooses not to get one.

100

[QUOTE=Digital Stimulus]
Your confusion is that no one is making that argument. At least, not as far as I can tell. In other words, disliking cell phones – more specifically, disliking the manner in which they are generally used – is a separate issue from why a person chooses not to get one.
[/QUOTE]

Exactly! Rude users aren’t the reason I don’t use a cellphone. The reason I don’t use a cellphone is because I don’t want to be available 24/7. I do not want to talk to anyone. I’ve read the arguments about keeping it on silent or turned off, but if I’m not going to actually use the cellphone, then why should I pay for it every month? It’s a waste of money (for ME).