Expert offers tips to avoid rude cell phone use

Kirk Baird

Monday, Nov. 17, 2003 | 9:23 a.m.

In line at the bank. During a movie. Even during funerals.

Cell phone use has risen to what some are calling "a new level of rudeness."

"I hear it all the time and I see it myself," Carol Page, founder of www.cellmanners.com, said.

Including a recent trip to the movies.

While watching "Beyond Borders" Page overheard a woman sitting nearby answer her cell phone.

Page resisted the urge to pummel the cell phone abuser outright and instead turned around and stared at her.

As is common with most cell phone users, the woman simply ignored the glares and continued to talk well into the movie's emotional climax.

"They don't care," Page said. "That's the really scary part of it. People don't care."

Still, common sense would seem to dictate that talking on the phone during a movie is not appropriate.

"But sense becomes very uncommon when cell phones are involved," Page retorted. "It just goes out the window. I can see how it happened once ... but more than once and there's no excuse."

She receives several weekly e-mails to her website, www.cellmanners.com, from others who are equally annoyed by obnoxious cell phone users.

From personal conversations about a colonoscopy to a 5-year-old girl whose cell phone went off in the middle of a church service and she didn't know how to turn it off.

Most complaints, though, concern those who use cell phones while waiting in line.

"You know a cell phone conversation is dumb when it starts with, 'Guess where I am?' " Page joked. "That's deadly."

All this frivolous and occasionally obnoxious cell phone abuse has led to "a new level of rudeness," Page said.

"Proper use of public space needs to be re-evaluated now that cell phones are in our lives," Page said.

So to the newbie and veteran cell phone user, Page offers these tips:

Do not yell. "It's such a no-brainer, but people still haven't figured that one out yet. People don't understand that you don't need to yell. A lot of people have lousy cell phones, yet no matter how loud you yell over a bad connection, it's not going to fix it."

Turn off the ringer. "The ringing is one of the biggest parts of the problem because of the startle factor when you're sitting there minding your own business and the cell phone ringer goes off. I get very upset when hearing 'Whole Lotta Love' on a cell phone ringer. These day cell phones do everything from light up to vibrate without ringing. Then you can stop abusing great rock 'n' roll."

Keep personal business personal. "That's what offends people more than anything. Listening to personal health matters and relationships."

And, of course, consider when it is and is not socially acceptable to use a cell phone.

"I can't imagine a single reason why it's ever appropriate to have a cell phone turned on in a movie theater or to answer it," Page said. "I have no problems if you have it on vibrate and then if you get a call you take it outside" of the theater."