LOL...Bill, not only are you right, but that was the best laugh I've had all day!!! Loved it!

Barbie Dunn
Fayetteville, GA

I'd been meaning to respond to this post; so, I know this is really late. I agree with a great deal of Bill's letter but I'd like to add a couple of observations.

1. Every user of a cell phone or communications device is not a "casual" user. Some employers now routinely assign a cell phone or blackberry to their employees and they expect that the employee will answer every call and every e-mail instantaneously. Call it the Salary Man's Curse . . . no overtime pay but you get to work 'round the clock. I know people who have been summoned to their boss's office with an angry demand to know why the employee didn't respond to an e-mail sent at 9pm on a Saturday. So, the multi-tasking jet-setter may not have had a choice about sharing the "intimate business dealing of the day with the 40 or so people within earshot." His employer has decided that your peace and quiet is secondary to his bottom line.

2. The truly "casual" user is responding to the changes in how we live. I don't recall the particular statistic but I do recall a study that showed that Americans have less free time than they did 30 years ago. We cram more and more tasks into fewer and fewer hours. In order to meet those goals we have to cut something, somewhere. Social time -- the time we used to spend visiting and catching up with each other -- has been the unfortunate victim of our busy lifestyle. If you really think about the conversations you used to have face-to-face, you'll see that they sound very similar to the ones these folks are having by phone. So, now, rather than going to visit with friends, people "visit" by phone in their dwindling free time (at the grocery store, waiting in the doctor's office, at the car mechanic, etc.). I doubt that bluetooth wearers think they look cool. I think they are just responding to the need to do more than one thing at a time.

Is it annoying? God, yes. Recently, I accompanied a friend to a restaurant that was empty except for one other customer. The other customer sat on her cell phone, talking loudly, throughout her entire meal. I stared at the woman. I glared at the woman. Nothing seemed to convey that I didn't really want to hear the details of the lives of people I don't know. Thankfully, she finished her meal, paid the bill and left.

Other than that type of situation, where I cannot escape the chatter, I generally excuse the abuser because the likelihood is that the person on the other end is one of few social contacts that person has left.

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If you and I are always in agreement, one of us is likely armed and dangerous.

I have to admit it, I have at one time or another been one of those who "had to talk" to someone while in a store or doing something else. I try not to bother other people with my conversations, so I usually wait until I'm at home or otherwise not busy. But I agree with Bill, it is a bit out of hand especially at airports. There are probably 10 or 15 people at a terminal out of 70 or 80 that are not on the phone at one given time.. The cell companies love it!

I pretty much agree with Mr. Hubbard's letter about those strange people who make useless calls to just about everybody they know while in public.
I mostly hear the phone nuts in grocery stores where the conversation goes something like this: I'm now leaving the coffee aisle going to pickels and olives---oh, did you hear about Susie and her date? Wow--wish it was me! Corn flakes are on special today, guess I'll get two boxes. The silly store manager here looked at me strangely, I thought, as I came in the store. Maybe he just likes to look at me, I don't know, What do you think? I don't think I have noticed a single person yet today here I have been so busy talking and shopping---it is just as well as they all just stare at me anyway! Do you think store brand peas are good? My kids are in here somewhere--they know not to go out the door, though. I could just talk forever but if you must go it's ok, I'll just speed dial the next one on the list.

There may be more to the "Borg" analogy than intended.

In addition to looking half human/half android, the Borg was referred to as "The Collective." "Individuals" had no individuality. So long as they were plugged into The Collective, the thought of one was the thought of all.

So it goes with those whose fundamental values have been manufactured by what is available in the entertainment world and wider pop culture.

Parents make the mistake of thinking that the only concern is to shield their kids from sex and violence. All the while, movies and other forms of entertainment directed at children foster an ironic and cynical outlook on just about everything, that leaves no room for either the sacred or the sentimental and produces what author Mark Crispin Miller has called "the hipness unto death."

Bill -
Great observations - I couldn't agree more. These people walking around with that aperatus stuck to the side of there heads are a walking joke.