I stopped off at a supermarket recently on my way to work to pick up some lunch for later in the day at my job.
Close to my newspaper’s current offices are two of the three basic food groups, McDonald’s and Taco Bell, but I like some variety in my eating, so occasionally I pick up a sandwich and stow it in the refrigerator in the cafeteria at work.
The store was busy, but you had to be deaf to not hear the cell phone conversation that was going on. A man in his 30s, with a child in tow, was pushing a shopping cart and walking through the store while talking on what seemed to be a business-related call.
The timbre of his voice was such that his words were carrying through about a quarter of the store, and people were stopping and staring as he obliviously walked up and down the aisles and talked about the work he was going to do.
The biggest complaint people make about cell phones is when someone is holding a conversation and they can hear it. I can’t understand why such phone users insist on such public phone conversations. I mean, they get all hopped up if the FBI is listening in, but it seems that it’s OK if it’s just strangers at the supermarket or mall.
Like many other people, I have a cell phone. When I use it I try to avoid having conversations in public places, preferring to either step outside or away from others, and keeping the call short.
I think that’s just common courtesy, and it seems that even the cell phone-using public agrees. Who wants all these strangers around you to know your business?
Despite the assertions of some, people conducting cell phone conversations is not a sign of the impending apocalypse, or the collapse of society, but I recently was struck by a brainstorm as to how to solve the problem.
When I was in electronics training in the Marines, I learned about “sidetone.” On radios and land-line telephones, a portion of the outgoing audio is tapped and run into the earpiece or headphones of the person speaking. When you can hear your own voice, you’re less likely to talk too loud so that everyone in a half-mile radius can hear about your adenoids.
Next time you’re on the landline phone, notice that you can hear your own voice as you’re talking. The inability to hear their own voice is why deaf people who can talk often talk too loud. I saw this one time on a TV show, and the person was almost shouting. When you can hear your own voice, you tend to “keep it down.”
More use of sidetone on cell phones might be the key to cutting down the loudness of conversations, and might even lessen the calls for restrictions on cell phones.
Oftentimes, I voluntarily leave my cell phone in the car when I’m going to the movies or some other public event, not just because I don’t want to annoy others but because I don’t want to lose it. Also, I’m so unimportant a person that I doubt anyone will call me anyway.
Maybe someday, in the future, more people will see the cell phone as something that doesn’t have to be carried all the time.
Cell phones are marvelous conveniences, but if they’re not used with respect to others, they can quickly become annoyances.
Vincent F. Safuto works for a newspaper in Florida, and occasionally turns up on his brother Robert’s podcasts.
