Nerve Endings Firing Away

Charu recently wrote about the changing trends in cell phone culture in India that is frowning upon bad “mobile manners”. Having a mobile used to be a status symbol in India few years back; not so much anymore when your dhobi, suttar, and doodhwallah also carry one. Effectively, the flaunting of your cell phones has reduced now although some still flaunt the brands and models but the spate of mobile stealing has or will reduce that too.

Undoubtedly having a cell phone is a matter of necessity nowadays rather than a luxury. It is similar to having an Internet access; you can get by but you are greatly inconvenienced if you don’t plus since everyone has it, there is that little matter of peer pressure too. In all the hullabaloo about owning a cell phone or not (the last bastion of resistance fell when one of my friends in Atlanta who had swore that she would never get one finally succumbed), we seem to be slowly moving to cell phone etiquette. Talking in a theater is a virtual no-no although sometimes people in India have the nerve to carry on a loud conversation about the most inane topic right in the middle of an intense filmi scene. Strangely in the United States, about 11% of people thought it was okay to talk on the phone in a movie theater in 2000; it is less than 2% now. Social pressures coupled with strict and continuous warnings seemed to have helped. So where else would you not or are not expected to talk on the cell phone?

Would you talk on your phone in the bathroom? It seems that nearly 40% of the people think it is fine to do so (it was almost 62% in 2003 so the numbers are falling) [via Tech Dirt] Ash refuses to continue our ‘mobile conversations’ when I visit the bathroom and frankly even I find it weird to do so. One of my ex-roommates on the other hand had no problems carrying on muttering sweet nothings to his girlfriend while taking a leak. I wonder how could she hear him pee and still manage to keep the romantic mood alive. Urgh! Also, as Amit sees it best, it would be quite funny to see ‘mobile manners’ being imposed in our venerable Parliament.

Now where else would you NOT talk on your cell phone?