PRIVACY BOOTHS ?
Privacy – a quiet concept that is relatively non-existent
today. Reality T.V.—was it the catalyst
for the sudden shift from protecting personal moments from public scrutiny to
an uncontrollable desire to over share more than anyone wants to know? In an age of the Kardashians, CCTV, satellite
surveillance, and an entertainment news cycle that is obsessed with a prurient invasion
into others’ lives, it is understandable that any expectation of privacy seems
antiquated today. I am not willing to
give up mine so easily. However, I’m
afraid I may not have a choice!
Phone booths had a great purpose: A person could conduct a
private telephone conversation in a public space without being overheard by
others. Not only was the caller’s
privacy protected, but the surrounding public was spared the noise of their intrusive
conversation. Today there appears to be
a trend, particularly among females, to expose others to their personal
telephone conversations in stores and other communal spaces. Recently, I have been forced to hear about
someone’s bouts of diarrhea, a daughter’s sex life, a husband’s infidelity, a
heavy menstrual period, and a myriad of mundane accounts of dramas at
home. People tend to speak louder when
on their phones. Perhaps phone booths
are an old invention which should return for a new purpose – protecting the
rest of us!
When I asked a younger friend about this over sharing phone
phenomena, she was shocked to learn that having an open telephone conversation
on her blue tooth for the entire time she was shopping could possibly bother
anyone else. In her mind, the
conversation was just between the two of them.
She had never considered that others were being forced to hear everything
she was saying. She felt it was her
right to talk on the phone out loud if she wanted to and didn’t care if
strangers absorbed the content. I then
asked how she would feel if all the customers in the store were simultaneously
talking on their phones for extended times, and she indicated that the feelings
of others had never entered her mind. Again, the idea that her conversation was
invading another’s space never dawned on her.
She was functioning in her own space, as if no one else existed outside
of her world.
I have tried to imagine the cacophony of sounds that would
be created if everyone at a movie, everyone in Nordstrom’s, or everyone in a
gym were talking out loud on their phones at the same time. The noise would be deafening, if everyone
exercised their right to carry on extensive telephone conversations while in
shared spaces. Of course, I am not
expecting grocery stores, shops, gyms, or dressing rooms to be treated like
libraries. However, I also do not think that other patrons should be bombarded
with uninvited loud monologues by inconsiderate people who think they need to
multi-task chat while in stores and gyms.
Movies, shopping, and exercising were once considered simple diversions
from the busyness of life. Now it seems
that there needs to be an added distraction of carrying on phone conversations
while participating in supposedly relaxing activities. If you wanted to talk on the phone to your
best friend for thirty minutes, why didn’t you just stay at home or try to find
one of the new privacy booths that were recently erected as an outcome of this
article?
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