CELL PHONE ABUSE... VICTIMLESS MISCHIEF?
by Dr. David Currie

Driving to work recently in Tennessee, a young lady engaged on a cell phone is observed casually driving into the rear of a long line of cars stopped for a red light.  While a number of states harbor laws against driving while distracted, New York may be the only state which specifically prohibits cell phone use by drivers (other than bus drivers, who are prohibited from using cell phones in many states)... few other states are likely to enact legislation against car phone use... accidents would be just as effectively reduced by banning eating, smoking or nose picking while driving.  But there are some problems...

I tried to estimate how many of our university students use cell phones by watching the number who start calling immediately upon leaving class... a close estimate might be about one third.  Callers line the hallways between and during classes, staring out the windows while seemingly chattering to themselves.  During most classes I teach, we are interrupted by at least two calls... triggering frantic phone digging, and a rush to leave class to respond.  The incoming calls are inevitably accompanied by loud, prolonged, annoying ditties.

Walking through a Wal-Mart parking lot during the festive holiday, a very loud, very angry man yells obscenities through his cell as he walks towards the store, blissfully ignorant of those around him... including numerous children who receive his lewd linguistics lesson.  As a repeat, a woman hurls obscenities through her cell from a bench top perch outside Food City... at what sounds to be the more legitimate partner of a recent lover... between explosive expletives, she leaves no personal detail untouched, despite the many storefront passersby.

While the Internet abounds with stories about disagreements caused by cell phone abuse... angry theater and symphony goers, disgruntled restaurant patrons, agitated visitors to libraries and museums, annoyed students in crowded classrooms... at least one member of a fitness club in Mountain View, California struck another patron who would not stop using a cell phone in the sauna.  In like fashion, the "Online Athens" recently reported a cell user who tossed a man through a plate glass store window for interrupting his mid-sidewalk phone conversation.  Some of us may benefit from a recent article published elsewhere, in which Christopher Elliot presents a cell phone etiquette test... please take it by clicking here!

Dr. W. David Currie