Cell Phone Talk: The New Second Hand Smoke
An escalating series of bans are surfacing all over the world on cell phone chatter. Soon, people who talk on call phones in public places are going to start finding it harder to ply their habit.
It’s getting popular in Europe to set aside public transit as cell phone free zones. In France the SNCF rail company calls them “zen zones”. Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Finland have “quiet compartments” on trains and in Graz Austria the government has ordered commuters to keep their phones in “silent mode”.
Closer to home in the US, members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee announced proposed legislation to ban cell phones use on aircraft.
Cell phone conversations have become the latest pariah worldwide and the debate is escalating. In the future you can expect many voluntary requests to go cellular-silent to turn into law. Surprisingly the bans aren’t out of fear of second hand radiation causing anyone brain cancer.
The bans are rolling forth out of a need for commuters to have some peace and quiet while traveling in a crowd. Imagine rubbing elbows in a crowded subway with every second person trying to carry on a conversation over a cell phone. It could escalate into a noisy compartment.
Whatever happened to awkwardly staring at your shoes and vacant smiles when confronted with a crowd of strangers?
