Mobile Phone Etiquette

[redwing]

I was at the shops yesterday and saw two events that reminded me of the below image

1. I was in the lift with a young couple, bub in pram and both were on their phones texting, they left the lift as silently as they arrived walking off pushing the pram faces down texting

2. Three young guys sitting down outside in a group all texting

It then had me thinking about Mobile Phone Etiquette, this is what I found

One of the most revered inventions of the last century, the cell phone, is also one of the most controversial. There’s no question that everyone needs one. However, the way many people use them has gotten out of control. Remember that the cell phone is not the problem; it’s the user’s lack of respect for others. Rather than come across as one of those people, follow a few simple rules of cell phone etiquette.

You may forget that everyone around you can hear every single word you say. Not only can what you say be misconstrued, a steady stream of one-sided chatter will likely be annoying.

Places where you should limit your cell phone use:

Restaurants:
Put your phone on vibrate to prevent creating unnecessary noise if your cell phone rings. Only make outgoing calls if necessary and keep them brief. When people call you, let them know that you are eating, and unless it’s an emergency, tell them you’ll call back later. Keep your voice as low as possible.

Movies, Theaters, and Plays:
Turn your phone off before you enter the venue. If you are concerned about your children who are home with the babysitter, you may have your phone on vibrate, but make sure it doesn’t make a sound when someone calls. Don’t answer it in the theater. Step out into the lobby and call the person back.

Work:
If you have a private office, it’s probably fine to leave your cell phone on. However, if you are a cubicle dweller, do your neighbor a favor and put it on vibrate. Resist the urge to conduct private business in your cubicle. The people around you don’t need to know everything you do after hours.

Churches, Synagogues, and Other Places of Worship:
Turn your phone off or leave it in the car. You and everyone around you should be able to worship in peace.

Flying:
Before your plane takes off, turn your phone completely off. Most airlines don’t allow cell phone use because it may be a safety issue. There is some concern that electronic gadgets, including cell phones, may interfere with navigation equipment.

Bus, Train, and Other Public Transportation:
Turn your phone off or have it on vibrate. Limit your calls to emergencies. Once again, it is rude to chatter on a phone in public.

In the Checkout Line:
If you are standing in the checkout line, talking on a cell phone is rude to everyone around you—from the other customers in line to the cashier. You can wait a few minutes to talk on the phone. Don’t initiate a call while standing in line. If the phone rings and you feel that you must answer it, let the person know you’ll call right back and hang up.

Private Talk
When you’re hanging out with friends and family, don’t be rude and chat with someone else on your cell phone. Be both physically and mentally present for the people you care about. If your phone rings, let the person know you’ll call back later, when you are alone. Doing otherwise gives the person you’re with the impression that he or she isn’t important to you.

Texting
Avoid text messaging while you are engaged in an activity or meal with someone else. Text messaging in front of others is the equivalent of whispering behind someone’s back. Even though it’s a typed message, it’s just as bad as chatting with someone who isn’t there.

source

It's not like they come with a rule book; How do you manage yours?

If you have kids with phone's, what are your rules?

 

[INVSTOR]

I was a bit horrified when my daughter had her 12th birthday. She invited two of her closest/new friends over for a party and sleepover. They didn't bring gifts. I thought, OK maybe it's not the done thing around here. Then when she opened her gifts from us they sat there on their phones texting. Incredibly rude. My kids don't have phones yet, trying to avoid for as long as possible.

 

[Nemo30]

We were having a big family dinner this week and I needed to contact my son to tell him where we were going - an hour before we needed to be there I rang and rang and rang trying to get through to him.

Turned out he was giving a presentation in his uni tutorial and his phone was going off in his pocket the entire time.

 

[jim1964]

Funnily enough this behavior of using phones and i pods came to a head today while having lunch,its nice to all sit around the table and actually integrate into each others little world.But no,texting and ipoding were more important to my 12 &14 year old,i did ask nicely to put them away,but no,they both ignored me.
I confiscated both the phone and i pod,now im the bad Dad,i now have 2 vibrating bits of technology constantly vibrating in my pocket the rest of the afternoon.The things we do!!!!

 

[JessP]

We have some solid rules around technology use, I am trying to teach them how rude it can be. I'm sure they think it is archaic. It does help that both me husband and I are "Gen Y", our oldest child is 10 and has an ipod but we have internet/text using blocked. Trying to hold out as long as possible but it is getting harder and harder. A little boy I know just got a phone for his 7th birthday

 

[westminster]

I was a bit horrified when my daughter had her 12th birthday. She invited two of her closest/new friends over for a party and sleepover. They didn't bring gifts. I thought, OK maybe it's not the done thing around here. Then when she opened her gifts from us they sat there on their phones texting. Incredibly rude. My kids don't have phones yet, trying to avoid for as long as possible.

Horrified they didn't bring a gift! Admittedly it's hard to buy for that age but we always send our 14yo with a gift of something easy like a gift card, movie tickets etc. He's even gotten cash in a card from a friend.

 

[wylie]

Horrified they didn't bring a gift! Admittedly it's hard to buy for that age but we always send our 14yo with a gift of something easy like a gift card, movie tickets etc. He's even gotten cash in a card from a friend.

This post reminded me of a gift my oldest son received at a party (maybe when he was 18?). It was an apple with about 20 one dollar coins pushed into it. To get them out he had to cut it apart. Great idea.

 

[fernfurn]

We were out to a late lunch the other day and Mum was there with the 2 boys who were set up drawing while she texted. One of them showed her thedrawing and she barely took her eyes off thescreen for a sec and then back to texting again. I felt very sad for them

 

[weg]

Horrified they didn't bring a gift! Admittedly it's hard to buy for that age but we always send our 14yo with a gift of something easy like a gift card, movie tickets etc. He's even gotten cash in a card from a friend.

That's what I thought. Something small is fine as it's the thought that counts.

 

[Kinnon Bell]

More suited to adults but if you're out to dinner get everyone to put their phones face down in the middle of the table. First to touch their phone pays for dinner.

 

[DaveM]

This post reminded me of a gift my oldest son received at a party (maybe when he was 18?). It was an apple with about 20 one dollar coins pushed into it. To get them out he had to cut it apart. Great idea.

That was the predecessor to the Apple iTunes $20 gift card.

 

[weg]

This post reminded me of a gift my oldest son received at a party (maybe when he was 18?). It was an apple with about 20 one dollar coins pushed into it. To get them out he had to cut it apart. Great idea.

For a mates birthday, older son and his friends were about to open about $100 worth of Twistie packets to put in a large gift wrapped box for their friend who has been know to be Twistie mad all his life. WT...

I found out what they were about to do and convinced them leave the packets unopened .

 

[INVSTOR]

Horrified they didn't bring a gift! Admittedly it's hard to buy for that age but we always send our 14yo with a gift of something easy like a gift card, movie tickets etc. He's even gotten cash in a card from a friend.

That's what I thought. Something small is fine as it's the thought that counts.

That's nice to know I'm not the only one who thought it was a bit different. Rude parents = rude kids.

 

[softmonkey]

Great topic. My daughter is 11 months old and is already desperately fascinated with our phones (and remote controls, and keyboards...). Every breastfeed has been accompanied by the dim glow of her mum's facebook or time-tracking app. She cranes her neck to see whatever we are doing on our screens. I give her 5 minutes of playtime on a tablet twice a week. As a geek myself part of me secretly wants her to be fluent with tech but when visiting friends I'm always intensely aware of how anti-social todays kids have become. Some of their faces I have never even seen front on!

This has become quite a serious consideration for us and is already affecting all our future decisions; like the amount and type of childcare, schools, social clubs, sports clubs, even where we will buy our next house (parks etc) and how big the backyard will be. As an original riding, climbing, building country boy myself I know there is a happy medium to be found, but it will take a huge conscious effort.

 

[vbplease]

^^Its amazing how young they start.. My 2yr old niece knew her way around her mum's iphone taking photos and playing fruit ninja, while I'm still using a 5yr old nokia phone that only makes calls and texts.
Niece (3) and nephew (4) now have their own ipads and the parents are patting themselves on the back now they have some peace and quiet

I always thought primary school years were the best years.. no way would I want to be a kid growing up now imagine explaining to a someone 50yrs ago what cyber bullying is now?

 

[Blacky]

Im sure we all have tech-gone-wrong stories...

My friends 18month old who now has a tablet "so that I can have mine back" (quote from father).

When the uncle was given a new phone for christmas, and spent 3hrs on his own trying to figure out how to change the ring tone, he put it down for 5mins to grab a drink and 5yr picked it up and was surfing the web when he returned (Can it REALLY do that?).

Im still slightly older than the current Gen who cant put the things down, though only just. And I hate it when Im out and the whole time people are posting quotes, pictures and locations on facebook (cmon guys - at least make it slightly difficult for my stalkers to find me )
I gave out a mouthful to a young lady on the weekend, as she sat out of the conversation the whole night in order to communicate via facebook with friends overseas, rather than chat with us - who were sitting in front of her. But of coarse I was the rude one.

I have an iphone, and like it, but can also comfortably live without it.

 

[kathryn d]

Parents are doing a great disservice to their minor children by allowing them to have free access to mobiel phones, ipads, and all the other gadgets.

Facebook, twitter etc are nothing but a waste of space and time. People shouldn't be posting every minute detail of their lives...especially children.

What is the matter with parents today?

 

[Mr. Fabulous]

 

[Doovalacky]

Facebook, twitter etc are nothing but a waste of space and time.

One of the things I get ragged on at work by the guys is not having facebook/twitter.
Apprentices know to watch how much time they spend on the phone around me don't pay attention and you're likely to lose your phone. Permanently.

Smoko etc that's their own time but while working someone could get hurt of killed due to inattention.

 

[BayView]

It does help that both me husband and I are "Gen Y", our oldest child is 10 and has an ipod but we have internet/text using blocked. Trying to hold out as long as possible but it is getting harder and harder.

Good idea.

We have had two incidents this year with fighting, name-calling, swearing and generally being very badly behaved on our son's Ipod (he's 11). All kids concerned are actually pretty good kids and from decent homes and families, but give them a texting device and watch things change....

Our son was very badly behaved in the first incident - but not alone on that.

He and a girl at his school - they used to like each other a lot - had a nasty "break up"...lots of name calling and swearing etc.

It ended in a meeting with her parents, and her parents then met with the Principal and her teacher over something her teacher said in front of the class about "certain kids" behaving like babies....the whole class knew who he was referring to...poor form; he should have dragged both of them aside and talked to them in private about their texting and general schoolground behavior...

My son lost the use of it for a month as punishment (and no Xbox) and was lectured that he is never to respond to these types of people and stoop to their level of disgusting language and behavior; "We expect better than that and have raised you better, you are a Grade 6er and need to be more responsible", ra, ra ,ra.

Funnily; he and the girl are now friends again.

He just got the Ipod back yesterday after school....

Then, last night about 9.00pm he came to me to show me a texting conversation (I was impressed with his honesty to fess up) with him and another girl and one of his male classmates who was a friend - but the two had not been getting along too well in recent weeks - the boy is funny, but a bit of smart @rse; teases other kids a lot and a bit of a bully. (This all ended in a fight last week - the boy was teasing my son over a girl and after a few warnings to stop he finally snapped; my son punched him in the face and then flying kicked him in the stomach - I was not happy; considering all our talks about not fighting etc - but I was secretly doing a fist pump because the boy is a fair bit bigger than our boy, and a bully - the other kid is becoming bad news, and he bloody-well deserved it). I made our son report it to his teacher, I thought it had all blown over and they were friends again....but not so.

To my son's credit he did not use any foul or vicious language in this texting conversation last night, but he kept responding to the taunts and jibes and vitriol (from both of the other two), after I specifically told him not to and to ignore these types of scenarios...just turn the damn thing off.

My son and the girl are supposedly friends (he's never met this girl - lives 60 miles away), and somehow the three of them were in a conversation last night. The classmate was displaying very bad behavior and swearing on the texting, and managed to turn the girl against my son through lies, and she stooped down to the gutter talk as well. The boy was stirring, and she fell for it.

Some friend - if she can be so easily turned by a few lies from a complete stranger...she's no friend, and I pointed this out to my son.

This is all in the space of about 20 mins of text conversation too.

I intervened and texted back to these other two kids last night that the whole conversation was being saved and taken to the Principal when school resumes, and to stop acting like 5 year olds. She won't cop it from our Principal, but my son and the other fool of a kid will.

He then responded with about 30 texts of varying disgusting remarks - he is 11 years old. No response from my son at our end was allowed at all...after a while the boy gave up, but the girl came back on and was apologetic - pleading for my son to respond, and sorry for being a b!tch, etc..

I'm calling the boy's parents this morning to arrange a meeting, and sort it out. I'm tipping they have no idea what he is up to.

Our son has been banned from Ipod for another month, and was given another lecture about the dangers of responding to idiots and bullies on the internet, and being one himself. He has been warned that this is the last time - all gadgets confiscated and destroyed next time, and no computer use unless it's homework.

I also brought up a couple of examples of how kids have committed suicide over texting bullies etc to labor the point.

Their language made all our silly little tiffs on here look very tame.

The problem is their vehicles for texting have no mods to keep them in check, and kids haven't got the same degree of control and emotional development as adults (but neither do many adults) to stand back and ignore things, or laugh them off and not take things to heart which are said through a keyboard and screen.