cellotaped to a cellphone?

Prasanna was talking about the cellphone being used in public places to which I’d penned down some thoughts and putting them here as another entry.

These days cell phone is a big nuisance in such arranged events.. very annoying

If we really look at the problem… why would a person keep his cell on during a concert…?

1. selfishness – (cellfishness? 😉 ) he appreciates the music and respects the maestro playing it but he feels “MY calls are more important to ME than anything else”

2. insensitivity – he dosen’t even realise that he is bothering others by his activities. He is lost in his own world, and is completely oblivious to the inconveniences of others. Even if its told explicitly, he may assume its “someone else’s problem”, and that they’re referring to all the other annoying people but not him.

Anyone would hesitate to turn off their cellphone because of the basic concern most people seem to share – the delusion of self-importance that “my world (everyone I know and everything I am related to like work etc) cannot possibly survive without MY availability”. Its very intimidating to many people to alter this belief, hence even with the auditorium or whatever imposing rules, people ignore them or try and work around them and avoid turning it off.

Also some people are not familiar enough with their cellphones – they always use it only in the same way – and they do not even know that there’s something called a Discrete mode or a Vibrate-Only mode. (Actually my friend Jigar told me that even with such a mode it causes an annoyance esp in cinema theatres where its dark, because the light on the display is a distraction).

Nevertheless I feel one optimal solution to address the basic concern, might be to keep his phone in Silent (not even Vibrating) mode. That way at the end of the session, all the SMSs are there, and phone calls are collected in the cell as missed calls which can be returned. (Also maybe the organisers could put up a notice on how to get people to set their phone to silent mode or something like that 🙂 )

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As an afterthought, it looks like this insecurity that ‘my world can’t survive without me for two hours (and therefore I cannot afford to switch off my cellphone)‘ might well be a fractal form of the same kind of inhibition from taking a long vacation!