The Last Off-Limit Places for Cell Phones

Tuesday, 04. 28. 2009  –  Category: Dial611

The integration of cell phones into daily life has become more intrusive then ever.  What once was something that you mounted into a car is now as closely tied to someone as car keys and a wallet.  To an increasing number of people, it is even more important and has become the primary conduit for their business and personal lives.  It is part of their being.

The list of cell phone-safe environments is getting smaller and smaller.  Airlines are considering allowing them after take-off, while schools ponder the benefits or letting students bring them into classrooms.  All the while wireless networks are getting strong enough that few places now are considered out of area.

While the debate still rages on what proper cell phone etiquette means at home and in the office, I think there is a small list of times and places that we should all be able to agree are off limits for taking calls, texting and checking e-mails.

When Someone’s Getting Married

It’s just minutes away from one of the happiest moments in your friend or child’s life—and you are checking e-mails?  Perhaps it is you and your work that should be standing at the alter.  There are certain events that (you hope at least) are once in a lifetime.  Why not enjoy them like everyone else?

When Driving as You Argue With Your Children in the Back Seat as You Eat a Hamburger

Nothing says safety like multi-tasking while driving 55 miles an hour.  And yet, while advocacy groups and legislators work to pass no cell phone or hands-free laws, we continue to talk it up while operating our motor vehicles.  Some may claim it’s no worse than listening to the radio, talking with a passenger or smoking a cigarette.  But doing all of them together?  I think we can set the phone down.

While Sitting in the Front Row

So you have tickets to a concert or ball game that most would die for, and all you can do is distract yourself with your phone?  Even if you didn’t pay for the seats, most of the people around you did.  And being on the phone isn’t just a social faux pas.  It’s a safety concern.  After all, a 90 mile an hour fastball getting hit in your direction isn’t exactly easy to stop if you don’t see it coming.

When Nature Calls

This seems like a joke, but sadly it is not.  Visit a busy bathroom and you’re likely to see someone pressing a phone between their chin and shoulder while—well, you get the hint.  Stalls are not a private office, and no matter what you think everyone else can hear that you’re talking in there.  Do your business so you can get back to doing your business.

Call these too obvious.  Believe that they are too ridiculous to even discuss. But remember that saying about rules:  we wouldn’t have to make them if people didn’t do it.  So turn the ringer off or just leave it in the car.  But don’t kill the last, sacred areas of our lives free of your talking and clicking.

David Fleming is Director of Corporate Communications for Go611, a CornerWorld property.

Tags: article, cell phone, David Fleming, e-mail, etiquette, manners, texting