We need to talk about cellphones. Well, we don't NEED to, but I would love some kind of explanation. I'm not talking about cellphones in school, social media addiction or disinformation, I'm talking about the way people hold them.
Most people under about forty - and a smattering of self-consciously modish copycats over that age - seem to hold their phones horizontally in front of their mouths. This looks rather awkward, and is certainly counter-intuitive given that phones come with a speaker at the top and a microphone at the bottom for good reasons. When I see someone move their horizontal phone from their mouth to their ear to hear a response, I itch to show them how it's designed to be used (vertically, by the side of the face), but I know I shouldn't.
Anyway, I have tried and failed to find out if there's a good reason why they do it. I did wonder if it was something to do with avoiding radio waves, but I don't think that's it. I think it's literally a fashion thing - someone somewhere decided it looked cool, and everyone else just followed blindly along. I mean there's no practical reason for people to wear their pants halfway down their bums, but it doesn't stop people from doing it.
Most older people, me included, just don't understand it. Most of what I can find on the internet about it is clearly written, despairingly, by older people (here's one quite amusing example). Maybe someone will explain it to me some day.
No comments:
Post a Comment