There is a build-up of resentment against thoughtless self-involved cellphone users. They can ruin your restaurant dinner,
which you had so looked forward to, by carrying on a loud conversation at the next table. They are a menace in theaters, concerts and the opera. While using a
cellphone borders on the problem of the right of free speech, some place are beginning to ban its use. Hospitals in the United States ban cellphones because they interfere with delicate electronic machinery and disturb the patients. Commuter railroads are posting signs in each car asking cellphone users to sit in the back of the cars so they don’t disturb so many other riders.
Eventually enough people will become sufficient annoyed with the use of cellphones in public places that they will demand “cellphone-free-zones” in
restaurants, just as there are “smoke-free zones,” which isolate smokers from non-smokers.
Cellphone etiquette has become so important in America that there is now a guidebook published for cellphone users.
Transit systems are posting reminders to try to encourage riders to use some discretion about the public use of their cellphones. Many restaurants are also putting up signs. But the day may come when warnings are insufficient and the enraged public demands laws against the use of cellphones in public p0laces which were meant for all to enjoy. Perhaps the pre-martial laws sign, “Check your Guns here,” which once graced restaurants and hotels in Manila will reappear as “Check your Cellphone here”. Or at the minimum, cellphone users can be herded together behind a roped area, far removed from diners who wish to relax and enjoy their meal.
In New York actors unions’ require theaters to print a notice in the “playbill” program that audiences must turn off their cellphones. At the U.S. Open tennis matches a warning message is flashed on the Scoreboard requesting cellphones to be turned off during play.
What has been found, where warning signs are posted, is that irritated customers of restaurants, commuter trains, theater or sporting matches, when they see that a warning sign is present, then feel free to complain to the management about cellphone users who persist in placing and receiving calls. Soon they will become the social pariahs that thoughtless cigarette smokers are today.