One time a friend of my fathers was on a train sitting next to woman who was speaking to every member of her family, very loudly, on her cell phone. After a couple minutes my dads friend new almost everything that happened in this young woman’s family life… and he was not the only one… everyone in the train car new it as well. After five more minutes elapsed (and just before she got on the phone with her other son) my dad’s friend reached for her phone, grabbed it, closed it (it was a Razor) turned to the woman and said “Your done.” The cabin actually erupted in smiles and applause.
This is also the story he tells on how he first met one of his friend’s wives. because after he did that she turned and looked at him and said “Howie?” True Story.
Well, cellphone etiquette has always been a matter of concern and humor.
Misa Matsuda discusses the matter very eloquently in the book Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life:
In his review of letters sent by readers to newspapers, Kawaura (1992) identifies four sources of discord surrounding keitai [ Japanese word for cell-phone] in public spaces: (1) physical noise (voice, ringing phones), (2) violations of privacy in having to listen in on conversations one doesn’t want to hear, (3) the general creepiness of conversations with people who are not-sharing the same space, and (4) the formation of a new kind of hybrid space—the privatization of public space and the impression that personal conversations are out of place there…
Although others in the vicinity are ‘pretending not to hear,’ the person talking on the keitai seems totally oblivious to the consideration of others around them. because others are ‘pretending not to hear,’ the speaker should also be ‘pretending they are not being heard.’ …But keitai users ignore this rule and appear to those around them as if they really do not care. In this way, the norms of noninvolvement in trains have been thrown into disarray.
This is especially true here in the United States where more discrete uses of mobile communications such as SMS/text messaging have not yet become mainstream. And now with New York City beginning bids to wire the NYC Subway system things can only get worse.
Well, now you can try to bring some order back to the norms and unspoken agreements we have about social spaces with the Society for Hand Held Hushing or “SHHH (Dear Cell Phone User) cards” brought to you by the fine people at Coudal Partners and Oregon-based Draplindustries Design.
Following an idea initiated by Coudal’s wife, Heidi, Coudal and Draplin put together a series of free, downloadable cards, with messages like, “Just so you know: Everyone around you is being forced to listen to yer conversation” and “The world is a noisy place. ”
After reading a story in the NYT, Jim’s wife Heidi came up with a method to fight back against the obnoxious cell phone users that we all have to deal with in stores, restaurants, trains and pretty much everywhere else. Can design ride to the rescue? Jim and the incomparable Aaron Draplin think it can. So, as a public service, we introduce the reasonably polite SHHH, the Society for HandHeld Hushing.
As a public service the cards are free and can be downloaded as PDF’s here.
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Technorati Tags: cell phone etiquette, coudal partners, Dear cell Phone User, drapl, etiquette, humor, NYC, SHHH, Society for Hand Held Hushing
Caught this fun little article in Time Out magazine this past weekend. Its about how guys are using some interesting tactics to con girls into their cell phone numbers before even “picking them up.”
