Is your cell phone always at hand and ready for you to use? Mine is almost always nearby but quite often I have my phone on silent. I figure whoever is looking for me will either leave a voice mail or send a text.
Do you think there are times and places where you should purposely not use your phone? I do. I can think of many situations where it is not appropriate to use your phone. The movie theatre or actually any show is one. Cell phone use in that situation disturbs the people sitting around you. At dinner, whether it is at home or in a restaurant is another place. It’s hard to have a good conversation if everyone is staring at their phone! I’m sure you can think of other situations.
Another particular situation is on my mind because of a TV ad I saw recently. Perhaps you’ve seen the same ad? The ad takes place in a bathroom. Why would you ever feel the need to call someone at the same time as you are using a toilet? I bet the person on the other end of the phone doesn’t want to know that you’re in the bathroom. I bring this up because there is an ad on TV that highlights this very situation. The ad is actually promoting the fact that T-Mobile no longer has cell phone contracts. With T-Mobile you can replace your phone whenever you need to – regardless the length of time you’ve owned the phone. The ad I’m thinking of shows a man standing in front of a urinal with his cell phone braced between his shoulder and ear. He is talking on the phone. It is a public bathroom with several vacant urinals in view. Another man walks into view just as the phone slips and falls into the urinal. The first man hesitates, the viewer is lead to believe he is thinking about reaching into the urinal to rescue his phone and then there is the promotion for the T-Mobile service. T-Mobile makes their point but I think the point could also be made by showing someone jumping into a pool and then realizing their phone was in their pocket.
What do you think? Do you think it’s appropriate to use your phone whenever and where ever you feel like it? I’m interested to know!