Miss Andrea Macko opines on the nature of technology, manners and modern society
Most of us have mastered the fine art of not belching in public and covering our mouths when coughing. But many seem unsure about practising an everyday form of etiquette that’s becoming more important than minding your table manners — communicating with technology like cell phones and e-mail.
Cell phones and e-mail are proliferating like election pamphlets.
Stroll down any street and you’re bound to meet people with cell phones glued to their ears.
Jumping online for five minutes and setting up an e-mail account is easier than programing a VCR. Technology gives us the freedom to fire off e-mails in five minutes and converse while commuting — but it shouldn’t allow us to be rude.
Diane Craig is president of Image International, an Ottawa image consulting firm. She’s been in the etiquette business for 20 years and has seen how cells and e-mail have mauled manners.
“Please, those cute stories, chain letters and inspirational thoughts – we get enough in a day already!” she exclaims, adding that most people (ironically) just don’t have time to get through the glut of
e-mails many people receive in a day.
Aside from getting junk e-mail, a lot can be ugly to read.
“The speed of e-mail (should not) allow us to be sloppy,” chides Craig. She adds there is no excuse for making someone wade through a mishmash of bad grammar and inspired spelling when a built-in spell-checker is usually part of most word processing programs.
How do we get away with this lapse of manners? Simply put, because we can.
Dr. Dwayne Winseck is an associate mass communications professor at Carleton University. He says new technologies like cell phones and e-mail have intensified our use of time. We now need to get more things done in less time. And that puts an edge on everything we do. It creates a level of abruptness we’ve never experienced before.
Cell phone users are often the worst offenders.
No one has to endure bad spelling during a conversation, but it’s annoying when a user is talking so loudly that strangers within a 10-metre radius have to hear personal arguments over groceries or the details of teenagers’ torrid love affairs.
“Never assume your conversation is private,” says Craig.
And never assume that just because you’re on a cell, you can talk as loud as you wish or wander about.
You’re not in a private phone booth, after all.
This means no shopping while shooting the breeze on your cell phone, no mumbling during a movie and no rhapsodizing during a religious service.
We all have freedom of speech but we don’t have the right to interrupt in public places, or anywhere for that matter.
Kristin Lagodzki is a sales consultant at Wireless Zone Communications on Bank Street. Aside from selling cells, she uses one herself.
“I was a cashier when cell phones were just coming out. I’d be in the middle of a transaction and people would get calls. It would kill me and I’d have to wait (while they took the call),” she sighs. “I just think it’s rude.”
Lagodzki also says many cell phone users enter her quiet store to escape the noise of Bank Street — and talk on their phones.
“This isn’t a coffee shop,” she says. “Just because we sell cell phones does not mean you can just come right in and talk.”
Of course, some people do need to have their cell phones constantly on, like doctors and parents. But there are some things you can do to be more respectful of others in this high- tech age.
If a phone has a vibrating setting, use it, says Lagodzki.
Nothing’s more annoying than being in a crowd and hearing twenty phones ringing — especially if it’s to the tune of “Who Let the Dogs Out?” This also solves the problem of people coyly asking “Is that my cell or yours?”
Having a cell set to vibrate means it has to be close to the body, preferably tucked into a pocket or purse and not on a desk or a dining table.
A cell phone lying beside a knife and fork looks self-important and leaves the antenna open as an additional utensil
Cell antennas shouldn’t double as spears for fries and onion rings.
Lagodzki tells how she would always go out with friends and everyone would put their phones in the centre of the table.
“Someone spilled a glass of water on them,” she smiles. “It all changed after that (when the phones wouldn’t work).”
It also looks like you have more important people to speak to than your dinner companion, which isn’t very polite.
By no means should we return to the age of raised pinky fingers and simpering damsels in distress.
But if more of us are travelling the information highway, perhaps we should remember to give others the right-of-way.