Phone Manners

Has anyone else noticed that phone manners have changed? When I was a child we answered the phone with a family greeting. We were taught to say goodbye before we hung up, my mother insisted that we not announce that someone was in the bathroom and it was considered necessary to cover the speaker when you hollered for someone to come to the phone. If you had the call you stretched the line to find some form of privacy, gave all your attention to the person on the other end of the call and shut out the world you were in.

Of course the phone was in the kitchen, it was screwed to the wall, the speaker and microphone were tethered by a cord and it had a rotary dial. Phones were different then, manners are going to have to adjust as we expand our use of the phone, but some things really haven’t changed.

Oh I know people are busy and multitasking is a lingering fad where people are deluding themselves that they can do several things at once. Eventually they will discover that they do things better if they do them one at a time, but until then, it is rude to call someone and talk to someone else. It is rude to initiate or even take a call in a crowded room. Should I hear a private consultation between a stranger and their parole officer in the grocery store? We are living in a society of information overload anyway. Why contribute to it?

We need a list of phone manners… something like this:

1. 😀Say hello before you start talking, and goodbye before you disconnect.

2. 🙃Don’t embarrass yourself in front of strangers or your friends, step aside or outside to make or take a call.

3. 😃Set your phone face down when you are face to face with someone, otherwise the only relationships you’ll have is the one with your phone.

Just saying!