Dirtside's Journal: Cellphone Etiquette

In the last year we've seen a lot of articles about cellphone legislation and related technologies. Legislation tends to fall into the "ban cellphone usage in certain circumstances" category (like while driving, or where the transmissions might interfere with aircraft flight operations), and the technologies tend to fall into the "figure out ways to disable cell phones in certain areas" category.

The former is based on the hypothesis that cellphone usage during certain times is distracting, and therefore dangerous. The latter is based on the idea that people are often impolite when using cellphones. My wife has theorized that in Japan, this is all a nonissue, since cellphones have permeated society a lot more than they have here in the U.S. Everyone in Japan has a cellphone; people get new cellphones quite often. Nobody feels important because they have a cellphone, because everyone has a cellphone.

In the U.S., by contrast, not everyone does have a cellphone -- and our social etiquette has not yet evolved to deal with cellphones properly. It's beginning to move that way, over time, just like all social rules do. We don't need to legislate politeness; it'll work itself out, I think, over the next couple of years.

One small problem...

[Jherico]

Driving with a cell phone is illegal in Japan.

Re:One small problem...

[Dirtside]

I should have been more clear; what I meant was that the etiquette angle is a nonissue, since social structures have long since formed in Japan to handle "appropriate" usage of cellphones. Public safety issues are, apparently, legislated, which is as they should be.