CLONMEL -- The cellularisation of public spaces annoys me. It has created yobs who make mobile phones a menace. Two nights ago, a loud woman talked to a friend in Korea while browsing through the carrots in Dunnes Stores, Kilkenny. Last Friday, a public health nurse recounted all her in-home visits, loud enough for the dining car to hear. In the Kilkenny People, Josephine Plettenburg advocates "be where you are."
In the States, a new survey from the Lemelson-MIT programme shows people now regard the mobile phone as the invention they hate most, but cannot live without.
Most often, it's other people's cell phones that drive us out of our minds; with their high pitched jangle, all those distracted drivers, and the people talking to nobody. For the generation that still remembers the rotary phone, the cell is a tiny agent of social change; challenging the notions of space, time, and control. Those born into the world of Nokia and Motorola have a whole new measure of mobility and good manners.
Jakob Nielsen reports on a survey which found that bystanders rate mobile-phone conversations as dramatically more noticeable, intrusive, and annoying than conversations conducted face-to-face. While volume was an issue, hearing only half a discussion also seemed to up the irritation factor. People love to hate technology they need to carry.
Dick Gordon -- "Ambivalently Connected"
Joshua Meyrowitz -- No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior
Donald Norman -- Emotional Design: Why we love or hate everyday things
Howard Rheingold -- "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
Jakob Nielson -- "Why mobile phones are annoying"
Google finds 1010 pages that confirm "cell phones suck."
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