To the Editor:

Re “Devices Enforce Cellular Silence, Sweet but Illegal” (front page, Nov. 4):

Yes, it’s true: as James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University, says, “If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people.”

Cellphone use is but one manifestation of this unhappy fact. Or maybe it was always so, but with more of us living in closer proximity, today it’s more obvious.

Practically everyone alive capable of using a cellphone remembers when we didn’t have them. What did we do then? We got on just fine. I am no Luddite, but it seems to me we should remember this and exercise a little judgment before using our phones. Do I really have to take or make this call, will this call disturb those around me, can I move away from others, can I speak in low tones, can I keep it short?

Texting is only marginally better. Here, the rule of thumbs should be: will my texting interfere with where I am and whom I am with in person? How dispiriting to lose someone’s attention because the text message is potentially more important than who you are or what you are saying.

“In person” should trump everything and everyone else, hands (and thumbs) down.

Sheila Reilly
Newport R.I., Nov. 4, 2007

Note from KBJ: I’m amazed that so many people are willing to be leashed.