Is it fashionable to be rude?

The last couple of posts have dealt with mobile technology and manners. We've become so accustomed to our smartphones that we take for granted the ability to be connected nearly 24/7 to family, friends and even work. We can check email, send a tweet, watch a video, upload a photo or troll the internet virtually any time, any place.

But do we know when to power it down?

Thanks to David Carr's timely feature story in Sunday's New York Times, "Keep Your Thumbs Still When I'm Talking To You," I've got even more reason to keep myself in check.

Carr considers the digital revolution and what it has wrought, prompted by his recent attendance at the South by Southwest Interactive conference, where he moderated a panel called "I'm So Productive, I Never Get Anything Done."

Featured speakers competed with a screen in almost every seat, he noted. Laptops were everywhere. Tablets even more so. People traveled hundreds or thousands of miles to the conference in Austin, Texas, only to become part of a multitasking mass of thumbing-and-texting zombies. Remarkably, Carr writes:

...once the badge-decorated horde spilled into the halls or went to the hundreds of parties that mark the ritual, almost everyone walked or talked with one eye, or both, on a little screen. We were adjacent but essentially alone, texting and talking our way through what should have been a great chance to engage flesh-and-blood human beings. The wait in line for panels, badges or food became one more chance to check in digitally instead of an opportunity to meet someone you didn’t know.

During Carr's panel, the biggest reaction in the session came, he said, when Anthony De Rosa, a product manager and programmer at Reuters and a big presence on Twitter and Tumblr, said that mobile connectedness has eroded fundamental human courtesies.

“When people are out and they’re among other people they need to just put everything down,” he said. “It’s fine when you’re at home or at work when you’re distracted by things, but we need to give that respect to each other back.” 

His words brought sudden and tumultuous applause. It was sort of a moment, given that we were sitting amid some of the most digitally devoted people in the hemisphere. Perhaps somewhere on the way to the merger of the online and offline world, we had all stepped across a line without knowing it.

Amen.

Ever had someone whip out their phone in the middle of a conversation with you?
Ever had someone check their email during a meal or a meeting?
Or make a phone call from, ahem, a questionable location? (I'm thinking of the time I heard one side of a conversation coming from a stall in the men's restroom at a local theater. Seriously.)


I'd like to think I'm already on the right side of smartphone etiquette, though not perfect, by any means. Thanks to Carr's piece I'll be a little more vigilant -- both about my own behavior and someone else's bad manners.

Photo illustration: Tony Cenicola, The New York Times

Multitasking to a fault

I was going through the checkout line at our neighborhood Safeway the other day when it happened. I was listening to my iPod with my wrap-around earbuds and typing the last few characters of a text message when the cashier rang up my purchase and turned to me for payment.

Caught off guard, I quickly turned off the music and finished the text, then reached for my wallet.

What was I thinking? Was I really trying to do two or three things at once? Why? What was so important that I had to send a text while my groceries were being bagged?

The cashier gave me a half-smile and waited patiently. He should have given me a scowl. I felt profoundly embarrassed and, suddenly, self-indulgent. Right then and there, I vowed never to do that again.

Coincidentally, that same night, as I was looking for a photo to illustrate a recent post, I stumbled upon a blog by Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, and a post she' d written just a few days earlier wrote about cell phones and civility.

According to a recent "mobile etiquette" survey commissioned by Intel, she noted:

U.S. adults see an average of five mobile “offenses,” including the use of mobile devices while driving or talking loudly on a mobile phone in public every day.

Among the respondents who reported seeing offenses, 56% saw car drivers using mobile devices, 48% saw people using one in a restroom and 32% saw them used in movie theaters 

Top pet peeves include talking while driving and talking in a loud voice in public places

74% of survey participants believe that poor mobile manners have created a new type of rage (like road rage but directed at technology users)

65% say they become angry or outraged when they see these offenses . . . YET

20% say they continue to misuse technology because "everyone else is doing it."

I'll admit I can become easily aggravated when I'm stuck behind someone who's driving too slow or talking on a cell phone in an inappropriate place. But until the Safeway  episode, I hadn't seen myself as part of the problem (even if I was texting, not talking).

Brené Brown

"But here's the thing," Brown writes. "Our behaviors are choices and they are completely within our control. Unlike some of the other stressors that we have to navigate on a daily basis, we can ease some of the pressure that we all feel by treating each other with more respect."

I didn't consciously mean to disrespect the cashier but that's certainly how it must have come across to him and other shoppers.

Brené Brown ended her post with a challenge to her readers, one that attracted 73 responses, and I repeat it here.

"Here's what I propose we do to affect (sic) a small dose of change: Leave a comment telling us one  thing that you are currently doing that you'd be willing to change for one week. For example, talking while you're walking down the street or ordering fast food, or answering the phone when you're at a restaurant. 

"Also tell us one thing that really, really bugs you. My one thing is here. I'm going to give up talking while I'm grocery shopping."

What do you say, folks? Is there something you're willing to change?

Image and photo: www.brenebrown.com