How to Be Cell Phone Savvy

Photo illustration by Willamae Boling | VOX Staff

By Keosha Morgan | VOX Staff

You’re at the movies trying to enjoy a high-action thriller. Soon the bad guy is cornered and the damsel in distress is hanging precariously over a pit of sharks. She opens her mouth to scream: “[Insert cell phone ring tone here]!”

Not what you expected her to scream? You can thank the idiot sitting in the row behind you for this disruption of your viewing pleasure. What? This has never happened to you? Well, maybe that’s because you’re one of those rude people who can’t silence your phones when you’re in public.

We teenagers are among the worst offenders, and I’ll admit I don’t always practice the best cell phone etiquette either. When that little RAZR rings, we grab the call like our lives depend on it. And we don’t just annoy those around us, but also those on the other end of our phone line. So, to avoid being the stereotypical rude cell phone user, I’ve come up with a few rules of thumb you can follow to be cell phone savvy.

Don’t Interrupt Family Time
My mom hates my cell phone — especially when I’m at home — because it’s permanently glued to my ear. “Keosha, get your butt off that phone, you never spend time with your family!” she likes to shout at me when I take a call during dinner or some other gathering with my parents and siblings. “Just give me five more minutes, please!” I usually beg, completely unaware of how rude I’m being.

After many fights about my interruption of important family time to gossip with my friends, I’ve realized that my mom is right. Family time is important. I thought about it and remembered all those times my family was getting along, having a good time at home, and how I would ruin the moment by taking a call and launching into a conversation laced with “Oh my God!”s and “No, she didn’t!”s. So now I try to turn off my cell phone at home, or at least put it on vibrate, and wait until family time is over.

I know you’re thinking, “But what if my phone won’t stop ringing?” or “What if my boyfriend calls?” Well, all I can say is that there’s probably nothing so important that they can’t wait a little bit. You can call them back after your moments of family fuzziness are over. Corny as it may sound, just this one thing has made my relationship with my family stronger.

Take It Down A Thousand
How many times have you heard someone else’s conversation and thought “God, I wish he’d shut up”? Well, it’s likely that other people feel the same thing about you at one time or another. When it comes to using our cell phones, we’re hypocrites — we think only about ourselves and not everyone else.

One way to be more considerate is to use our inside voices when chatting in a public place. Pump up the volume on your phone — most of us speak loudly because we can’t hear what’s going on, and a conversation turns into a shouting match. If you’re not going to be able to control your excitement and voice level when you’re around strangers, find a private place to take the call and shout away.

Voice Mail Simplicity
Most of us love our cell phone voice mail messages; we think they’re the best, most clever thing we’ve ever created. But the reality is, to those who call us frequently — our parents and even our best friends — our messages become an annoying ritual they have to endure.

Music, jokes and funny anecdotes should be left for the actual conversation, not for a five-minute greeting. Rarely will songs recorded blaringly off our stereos come across as anything except annoying noise. Jokes take forever to complete, and they’re more likely to wind up in a hang-up than a laugh after a caller has heard them the first time.

Another voice mail don’t is the fake conversation. You know the ones where someone’s voice message starts with a hello and a long pause, so by the time you realize you didn’t get a live person, you’re already half way through discussing something important. Few things in life tick me off more than this.

If you can’t help yourself — if you must leave a creative message — please change it frequently so you don’t annoy the hell out of your friends and family. Instead I highly recommend sticking with a simple script: “Hi, you’ve reached the phone of [insert name here]. I’m unable to take your call right now so please leave your name, number and a brief message and I will call you back as soon as possible. Thank you.”

Don’t Ramble On
This one is for the callers. The flip side of the bad voice mail message is leaving a long, rambling message when you don’t reach whomever you’re calling. I know we’re disappointed when we can’t get a hold of a friend to tell them some big news, but it’s not cool to leave your entire intended conversation on voice mail.

A lot of people don’t even check their cell phone messages — they simply look at the caller ID and ring back. When they do check them, they just want to grab the name, number and brief gist of the call.

Another rule of thumb is to leave only one message. There’s nothing creepier than being a multi-message leaver, especially if you don’t know the person you’re calling very well, or if it’s someone you’ve flirted with romantically. Your eagerness will be mistaken for desperation.

Texting Don’ts
For those moments when we can’t talk but still want conversation, many teens resort to texting. We like to use texting shorthand — combinations of numbers and symbols that take less effort to type than whole words and phrases. However, texters have to realize not everyone is texting savvy and even a frequent texter can get confused by long messages.

Another annoying texting habit is the chain text message. I already know how much Jesus loves me and how much you love me as a friend, but I’m not willing to spend 10 cents a text message to let others know the same.

It’s been difficult, but by practicing the above rules of cell phone etiquette, I’ve learned to focus my attention on the most important things in my life rather than jumping like a trained dog whenever my phone rings.

Keosha is a senior at Mays High.