Phone Etiquette....for Adults

If only this worked...

We see annoying teenagers and younger twentysomethings everyday staring intently at the small screen in their hand everywhere they go, dillegently pushing away at the tiny keyboard, and giggling to themselves.  Usually they are in a group of friends and chances are they are texting each other from three feet away.  Its annoying but I guess thats part of the culture now.  I accept that and every now and then I get a payoff from it, the ditzy, giggling girl will be so concentrated on the pointless message on her screen that she will run into a wall or a pole.  Its times like this that make it kind of okay for me.  I hate texting for myself, but thats more of a personal choice.  I figure if I have something to say to someone that I can call them and be done with it.  I am an adult.  But I do understand that many adults do like to text from time to time, so I wanted to set forth a few simple guidelines to help you not be viewed as an a'hole while you do it.  This is not just going to cover texting but cellphone use in general as well.

• If the person you are wanting to communicate with is within 100 yards of you, don't text them.  Walk over to them and use the giant hole on your face to speak words to them.  You will burn calories and you will be practicing the fine art of speaking English.
• If you are talking to a friend face-to-face, put up your damn phone.  Sitting there and texting throughout an actual conversation shows that you are a disconnected, aloof, shallow, human stain.  Its rude.  At least pretend that you are listening to the person talking directly to you, it is just too obvious that you don't care if you are playing with your stupid phone the whole time.
• No one, and I mean NO ONE, cares about your conversation in public.  Strangers are not going to be impressed when you are bragging about the girl or guy you hooked up with last night.  So quit yelling into your phone in the middle of a crowd.  Have you ever seen a stranger approach someone on a cell phone and say, "Wow, I just wanted to tell you how impressed I am with you.  You seem really important and I am glad that you are sharing with us all."  No? You've never heard that exchange before?  Exactly because no one cares.
• If you are going to text, keep it short and simple.  Don't make it some long form essay that is going to require some long reply from me.  Some of us have really big fingers and it is a pain in the butt to hit those tiny buttons.  Also, if you have that much to say, just make a quick phone call.  The time that it would take you to type out your text essay, you could probably say it in under 2 minutes and get a quicker response.
• Don't text things like "lol" or "hey", all that means is that you have absolutely nothing to say
• Of course, there are all the other obvious rules like don't talk in theaters, quit texting and driving, etc. etc.

I say all of this because I have had a recent situation with one of my wife's "friends", (and I am using that term loosely and now in the past tense and who was by the way 36 years old).  My wife had befriended the girlfriend of one of her exes because she came to her for advice. (Probably not a good idea in retrospect)  They built a "friendship" over discussing her issues.  My wife was there anytime she needed to talk, day or night.  As time went on I noticed that as long as the conversation was about the "friends" problems, then they were both fully engaged in the conversation.  If the conversation shifted to anything about my wife or any issues she was having, the "friend" would immediately pull out her phone and start texting away.  I would always take notice and it irritated the hell out of me but Katie kept putting up with it.  I pointed it out to Katie, and she finally started taking notice. 

So, we started out almost making a game of it. The "friend" would come over, phone already in hand ready to go just in case, and Katie would immediately start telling her something about her day, or the kids, or anything pertaining to herself and BAM like clockwork the "friend" started texting away.  To her credit she would grunt every now and then to show some sort of understanding or she would show she still had a pulse by popping up, shoving her phone in Katie's face, and saying "Look at this!!" which was usually some dramatic, unimportant text from her mate.  It would never fail though if Katie asked her about herself, she would look up from her phone and start gabbing away about whatever dramatic, stupid crap she had to say.  It was excruciating to watch this, I got to the point that I would just say something rude and walk away. It wouldn't matter what I said either because she was blissfully unaware.
I then started to notice that whenever the "friend" wasn't here, she would never call, only text.  She could text Katie and she would immediately try to call her back because she didn't feel like texting and get no answer.  It wasn't like we didn't know that she was holding her phone, but she refused to answer.  Katie would then text her and get an immediate response.
So, like I always do, I came up with a theory.  I come up with theories to explain just about everything that makes no sense in life, just so I can deal with it in a logical way.  I figured that maybe she was raised in complete isolation with a keyboard as her only form of communication.  It was all that she knew how to do, she had spent her entire life with her friend "Keyboard Pal" and that was it.  No phones, no human interaction, nothing.  When she grew up and came out of isolation there was a keyboard on the phones and she was elated.  She could communicate people without actually having to speak.  (Ok, so probably none of this happened but its the only way I could explain her complete social retardation)
As anyone could guess this relationship ended (thankfully) and she is no more a irriatating part of my life.  The point of all this is to say that people become to reliant on their cellphones, to the point that it makes them unable to function properly in a real life setting.  This woman was an extreme case but I look at her as like a caricature of my point.  She was an exagerated phenomenom to prove my point.  Teachers are worried about how the future generation is not going to be able to properly spell or form a sentence, well I am worried about adults that become to stupid to actually communicate like an adult.