Often I need to go the library to study. I go there because I need a quiet place. Unfortunately any noise such as a sneeze, flip of a page, or student walking by seems to have the same effect as an air horn would at Pete's in Harvard Square. But over time I've come to accept people and their flaws that make them incapable of studying like corpses: motionless and silent. Generally I can concentrate on my work with these unavoidable sounds in the library.
I'm currently have trouble accepting people and their cell phones. That token noise of an iphone receiving a text or a facebook update really breaks my concentration. Sometimes I jump when the table vibrates from a buzzing phone. I'm not talking about the occasional text, like 1x an hour. I'm referring to the extended text conversions where the distractions occur at least 1x every 5 minutes. Before assuming that people were in the wrong with their distracting phones I first asked myself: Do I have any real basis for being more distracted by these cell phones than I am by page turning? Have I just had less time to habituate to these noises and vibrations? Or should people keep their phones on silent in study areas and place their vibrating phones in a pocket instead of the table?
And then I wondered if I should focus on why people don't switch their phones to vibrate or take them off a shared tables when they're having frequent interaction with others through their phones. I think some people genuinely are not distracted by their phones or the phones of others. But I also think that allowing everyone around you to be notified that you are in constant communication with someone not in the room may be a way of showing that you're popular or well loved or just super social.
Regardless of other's intentions for allowing their phone to behave in a way that is distracting to others in public areas that are meant to be quiet and for studying, I would prefer that people silence their phones and keep them off the table when they know they're going to be in communication with a lot of people.
What are your thoughts on phone etiquette in public settings?
-L
