One of my best buddies, Potter, is now back in town for the Duke MD-PhD program. We befriended one another in high school... and then he went off to Princeton for undergrad (turning down the esteemed Morehead Scholarship to Carolina in the process). In any case, Potter, Hao, and I had dinner at Charlie's Chinese, then headed back to Potter's for some chill time in the gazebo his brother built from scratch (this deserves a separate entry).

We all engaged in lively conversation (this rarely happens with me) about life, technology, and future plans. One of the interesting points of conversation was the pervasiveness of cell phones. Potter and I (in general) see eye-to-eye on things (our conclusions are the same, but the methods in which we get there are usually completely different), and we made a point that cell phones were changing the dynamics of social contact in a negative way.

People who carry cell phones suddenly become obligated to be "connected" all the time. People who call you expect you to answer - leaving your cell phone off or not answering it suddenly becomes a big headache for the person calling you. Suddenly, since the phone is mobile... you're always expected to have it.

But what's worse is that most of these calls have no real purpose - they are just idle chit-chat to "catch up" on things. How many times have I gone to the supermarket and heard the lady in Aisle 3 talking to her friend about what her co-worker did today? This, in and of itself, is not horrible.

What Potter pointed out was the absurdity in picking up a cell phone call while you're hanging out with real life people ... and engaging in a conversation with somebody else. One could argue that you are being polite to the person calling (since we've already established that not picking up calls is "not cool"), but what about to the people around you? What more are you looking for in terms of socializing than seeing people face-to-face and talking to them? Using a cellphone to talk with some random friend?

This is not to say that I think proper etiquette is ignoring phone calls - I used to think like this, but I've gotten around to picking up the phone (even while I'm doing other things), but the phone call is usually quite short. When Potter first called me to let me know he was in town, I was at dinner with someone else; I told Potter I couldn't chat now, and he understood. The value of conversation from a person right in front of you is worth far more than that of someone on the phone.

And what about when you're driving with some friends, blasting music loudly? Someone's cell phone goes off ... and all conversation grinds to a halt. The music is turned down, and everyone listens in on that conversation. If the receiver of the call is smart, they'll hang up as soon as they can (assuming they even pick it up). But it's poor etiquette to ruin the experience of others in the car for one phone.

I remember while I was teaching in Korea, my co-worker Joseph also had very similar views to cellphones. He carried one around (only at his girlfriend's behest), but he would *never* pick it up unless he knew it was important. His mentality was, "If it's important, they'll leave a voicemail." But one of his main gripes was that cell phones encourage people to be late to social events.

For example, if you're supposed to meet somewhere at 9pm to go barhopping, your ass is usually on time ... or else the group leaves. But with cell phones, people suddenly feel like they can be late ("Oh I'll just call"), and this irked Joseph to no end.

That's not to say that cellphones aren't valuable - they are incredibly useful. I just don't like how people place such a high priority on cellphones so they ruin the environment around them. Pick up your cellphone discreetly, please.