USA Today ran two separate stories about cell phones. The first story said that 30 percent of employers claimed cell phones ringing at work were their No. 1 pet peeve. It also said that it’s a big enough nuisance that some employers are limiting or banning cell phone use. It stated that 53 percent of employers feel impatient or angry when a co-worker stops a conversation to answer their phone.
The other story discussed the return of the phone booth for modern day. The Cell Zone, as it’s called, has a clear door so nothing other than talking takes place. Today’s booth does not have a phone – you bring your own. In order to keep their patrons happy, restaurants, bars, movie theaters and libraries are carving out niches for their cell phone using customers. At one time, when you entered a restaurant, you were asked, “Smoking or non-smoking?” Soon that will be followed by, “Cell phone or non-cell phone?”
In 2002, Cingular designed “Courtesy Zones” with couches or counters in about 50 Lowes theater lobbies across the United States.
In 2003, The Biltmore Room in Manhattan became known for its leather-walled cell phone booth and Chicago’s Boka restaurant debuted its velvet cushioned version.
Just how far and wide will this spread? Are we going to see phone booths in schools, churches and maybe even cemeteries? I wonder if Alexander Graham Bell envisioned this when he invented the phone back in 1876.
Today, everybody must have a phone. There’s even a starter phone for kids who aren’t quite ready for a real phone. It’s the Tiger Electronics Chat Now for $75 and available at toy stores. Is this really necessary? Give kids a mop and they will eyeball the foreign object and approach with caution, but give kids a phone and they’ll snuggle up to it like it’s a long-lost lover.
I was looking at my daughter one day, and thoughts of hopelessness filled me. She had no talent. She had nothing going for her. The future looked bleak. Then the phone rang, and sunshine broke through my cloud of despair. I watched her go from trying to tie her shoe to tying up the phone.
It was like watching a figure skater nail a triple axel. I wanted to stand and applaud. Even though she hadn’t learned 2 + 2 yet, she had learned the art of phone conversation. Some might view her conversation of “What are you doing?,” “I’m talking to you,” or “I’m eating a cookie” as somewhat elementary, but I consider it a sign to stop my needless worry. The kid is not a sorry sac.
For now, her conversations are restricted to the house, but one day she’ll join the masses of people walking the streets talking on their cell phone. She’ll become part of a generation that won’t know what it’s like to have talked on a phone and be restricted to a wall.
Why, it was just last century when people were tied to the wall when engaged in conversation. You would shoo away a nosy sibling so your private conversation would remain private. You would shoo away your children, who were ignoring you before the phone rang and then morphed into clingy, attention-starved, whiny kids once you answered it. You would get embarrassed if your private conversations were overheard.
Today, with cell phones, people don’t get embarrassed if their private conversations are overheard by strangers. Maybe the return of the phone booth is a good thing. Maybe, just maybe, if a person were required to talk in a booth, half of all cell phone calls wouldn’t take place.
Cindy Argiento is a free-lance columnist who lives in North Carolina with her family. Her column appears weekly in the Gilroy Dispatch and Hollister Free Lance. She may be contacted at ca*******@*ol.com.
