Thursday, September 11, 2003
Cell Phone Invasion
You know, I thought I saw an over-abundance of cell phones in Japan. The thing is, everyone in Japan has a cell phone, but they're not all likely to be talking on them, especially not for prolonged periods of time while walking around. At Grinnell, cell phones were only just starting to be a common sight when I left. But here, at MSU, it seems like I see more people walking around campus talking on cell phones than I do talking to actual other people. Even one of the military people walking around this morning was talking on her cell phone. When I got home on my bike at around 9:30 this evening, there was a man walking laps of the parking lot telling a long, involved story to his friend. On his cell phone. It's so weird. The etiquette is so different from country to country. I'm betting Americans just seem rather rude in other countries, since walking around use of the cell phone tends to be mostly for short "Where are you?" conversations. I'm kind of partial to that, but then, I don't think I'm very American anymore.
You know, I thought I saw an over-abundance of cell phones in Japan. The thing is, everyone in Japan has a cell phone, but they're not all likely to be talking on them, especially not for prolonged periods of time while walking around. At Grinnell, cell phones were only just starting to be a common sight when I left. But here, at MSU, it seems like I see more people walking around campus talking on cell phones than I do talking to actual other people. Even one of the military people walking around this morning was talking on her cell phone. When I got home on my bike at around 9:30 this evening, there was a man walking laps of the parking lot telling a long, involved story to his friend. On his cell phone. It's so weird. The etiquette is so different from country to country. I'm betting Americans just seem rather rude in other countries, since walking around use of the cell phone tends to be mostly for short "Where are you?" conversations. I'm kind of partial to that, but then, I don't think I'm very American anymore.
