“There’s no etiquette. It’s a pandemic,” says an Ohio therapist.
“If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people,” says a Rutgers University educator.
They’re talking about the ever-present cell phone that we all carry, and are often tempted to use when we shouldn’t. The complaints are widespread, but in our era of virtual solutions and entrepreneurial thinking, you also don’t have to look far to find a counter-movement.
“Deliverance!,” a San Francisco architect remembers exulting to himself when he secretly shut down the conversation of a young woman in the train seat next to him one day, using his own personal portable pocket jammer.
The New York Times reports that a device the size of a cigarette pack can knock out cell phone transmission in a 30-foot radius. They come in larger sizes, too, which can effectively create a “no-call zone.” They range in price from fifty to several hundred dollars.
The catch? It’s illegal to disrupt the radio frequencies of cell phone carriers, who pay billions to lease frequencies, and there’s a potential fine of up to $11,000. Also, jammers in the wrong hands could prevent communications in an emergency.
Still, the urge to silence the loud overheard conversations in settings where phones are not wanted is easy to give in to, like the restaurant owner who couldn’t get his kitchen staff to concentrate on customers, or the group therapist who was distracted from a troubled client making a sensitive confession because someone else in the group had answered a ringing cell phone, and then proceeded to conduct an audible conversation.
As always, the entrepreneurial spirit that got us to this point in communication technology, and in large part enables virtual assistants to exist, now needs to be applied to the problem of integrating these innovations into our lives, a process somewhat slower but just as important.
In the meantime, if you lose your call in the movies or just as you approach the counter in a café, or in a hotel ballroom during a lecture, just remember: it might not be an accident.
Services | Bankruptcy Forms Processing | Packages
FAQs – Aretha Gaskin | Free Reports | Contact