Cellphone Etiquette

What’s rude? Texting.

Ha…. I just noticed that the word “texting” has a red underline in it. Seems kind of ironic that a word we use so frequently and execute so many times as to cause me to vent about it, isn’t even a valid word.

I just came back from a friend’s debut performance very vexed with what I saw. No, not the performance itself – it was with the way that the younger members of the audience conducted themselves throughout the performance. Texting texting texting. God, they were texting more than probably the top CEOs in the nation do. I was upset by the fact that the friend had spent a good amount of time working her ass off to make this performance a successful one and these inconsiderate young girls spent the entire time glued to their phones and not even bothering to look at what was going on on stage. The entire time. I am not kidding. At least they sat up in the balcony of the performance hall, but there were people (like me) behind them because they sat in the first row. It was extremely rude of them to have their smart phones constantly lit up and do the whole flying fingers thing which was extremely distracting for me. I really wanted to thwack their heads with my program flyer!

So I guess the key thing is that there are no etiquette rules to texting and there should be. I never got a phone until I really needed one and even then, I was not allowed to text. I got texting, again, when I truly needed it – when I was actually leading projects in college and for other reasonable and practical reasons. Looking back, I am ridiculously glad that I did that. I cannot believe the girls’ ignorance when it comes down to phones. Scratch that – I cannot believe all teens’ addiction to phones. What need is there to be texting that frequently? What need is there, at that age, that they need smart phones with unlimited texting and unlimited data plans to access the internet every where they go? Honestly, I believe it is all a distraction to what they should be concentrating about at that point of their life. Don’t mistake me, I am not saying that having a phone is a bad thing – in fact I believe that cellular phones are truly one of the smartest inventions of all times. But like any good thing, too much is just well, too much. I like to compare it to wine – a little is excellent for the heart, but too much caused addiction and poor health.

A normal teen should be having some of the best social life of their lifetimes and should be gearing up to be successful in life by concentrating on excelling at school. They should be in their prime of communication. Texting is not a form of communication. When someone communicates, there should be emotions involved. Words should have meaning and should impact the listener. This even includes one girls physically talking to another girls about a hot new guy at school. With this example, there are emotions involved, hand gestures, and tones. All of which make a memorable conversation. This is communication. You may say that then I characterize blogs and newspapers and magazines as not being communication. No, I say that they are. Why? Because they impact the reader. When bloggers blog and writers write, they do it with some meaning in mind. There is a reason and they wish to impact someone with their writing. So it is good. What impact does it have if someone picks a dozen contacts out of their contact list and texts them “dont have nething 2 do”? Exactly nothing. No impact no nothing. This is useless writing and will get them no where.

I admire parents who limit the amount of texting their children are allowed to do and wish that this rule was universal. There are certain cases where unlimited would be OK but for the majority as far as I have seen, it should be completely and utterly banned. Teens have not yet learned what is considered too much and clearly have not been taught yet on the basic rules of etiquette in life. I was extremely displeased with what I saw today and wish that it did not happen. Perhaps it is time go backwards a little in technology to see the benefits of life without cell phones. But perhaps we have already gone too far.


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