Cell Phone Etiquette

The other day I was on the phone with a friend of mine and after we had a 5 minute conversation I told him to give a message to another friend of ours who he sees all the time. He told me that not only was he with that person right now our whole conversation had been on LOUDSPEAKER and the other person had been listening in. I didn’t say anything to the person at the time and I haven’t since but in my humble opinion that is just rude and a massive breach of social etiquette for the 21st Century.

I began to wonder as I was deciding whether or not to write this post if maybe I was being a little bit crazy and shouldn’t let such things bother me as I am sure they happen all the time. But then, the next day I called another friend of mine and some of the first words out of his mouth when he picked up the phone were – “You’re on loudspeaker and Wife’sName is with me in the car.” When I heard that I duly thanked him for making me aware of the situation, not because I had anything to hide from either of the people who were listening in on either call who I hadn’t called (or received a call from) in the first place. Simply put, it is a matter of etiquette. It is rude to be on the phone with someone and have them on loudspeaker and have other listen in without the other side’s knowledge.

In this day and age when our modern phones (both cell and regular, but mainly cell) have more and more options and gadgets available for us on them it is important, in my humble opinion, for us as a society to retain some sense of politeness and etiquette in their use.
If you are talking on the phone on loudspeaker and you are not by yourself it is just common decency to let the person (or people) on the other side know that their words are going out to an audience.

But that’s just my $0.02, as always your comments are appreciated!