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jaunthieI'm not referring to small children with invisible playmates. More and more, I'm noticing women wandering along, talking animatedly to thin air; men sitting on benches, staring into space, and then occasionally muttering a word or two to the empty space around them; and tweens and teens babbling incessantly to themselves.
A rash of mental-illness cases tossed out onto the street by our failing health-care system, you say?
Not at all - although it often seems that way.
No, I'm referring to the ongoing miniturization and componentization of cell phones, and the increasingly common practice of people to wander around with an almost-invisible earpiece connected to a cell phone, talking to whomever is on the other end of the line. Because of the nearly indetectable nature of these phones, it really does look an awful lot like these folks are talking to themselves.
Five years ago, this kind of behavior (repeatedly talking to oneself or one's invisible friends in public) would have had other folks reaching for their phones to call 911, or at least edging away carefully. Now...well, now, it still gives me the heebie-jeebies. Particularly when the person doing the talking has that glazed, thousand-mile stare, as they concentrate so hard on the person they're talking to they completely stop tracking the world around them. I know they're "just" talking on the phone, but they look loony. Plus they're something of a danger to themselves and to others when they tune out like that. Not to mention it strikes me as rude.
But undoubtedly this is something I'll just have to get used to.
A rash of mental-illness cases tossed out onto the street by our failing health-care system, you say?
Not at all - although it often seems that way.
No, I'm referring to the ongoing miniturization and componentization of cell phones, and the increasingly common practice of people to wander around with an almost-invisible earpiece connected to a cell phone, talking to whomever is on the other end of the line. Because of the nearly indetectable nature of these phones, it really does look an awful lot like these folks are talking to themselves.
Five years ago, this kind of behavior (repeatedly talking to oneself or one's invisible friends in public) would have had other folks reaching for their phones to call 911, or at least edging away carefully. Now...well, now, it still gives me the heebie-jeebies. Particularly when the person doing the talking has that glazed, thousand-mile stare, as they concentrate so hard on the person they're talking to they completely stop tracking the world around them. I know they're "just" talking on the phone, but they look loony. Plus they're something of a danger to themselves and to others when they tune out like that. Not to mention it strikes me as rude.
But undoubtedly this is something I'll just have to get used to.
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Date: 2006-03-31 02:42 am (UTC)Is it rude to talk on the phone if it's not done loudly?