An absence of etiquette

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/is-it-rude-to-shop-while-talking-on-your-phone-dont-all-call-at-once-8683927.html

The above story wherein a checkout worker refused to serve a customer because they were on their mobile phone is wholly and entirely unsurprising in our current instant access driven society. Before one launches into a potential tirade about the horrors of these ubiquitous gadgets however one thing must be cleared up. However annoying the worker found the rude arrogance of the Mobile user who failed to interact with them at the most basic level it is not acceptable for them to refuse service. They are in a customer service driven environment and however annoying the public can be (and they really can be at times) one must perform ones job as civilly as possible and only hope that some of your own manners rub off on this sort of person.

That aside however one knows EXACTLY how she must have felt. There are few everyday things more annoying than people's obsession with their mobile phones. We are not surgically attached to the darn things you know! Can on e not simply put them away whilst undertaking an everyday task in a social situation? Good grief! How likely is it that the majority of people one sees staring a their phones or barking into them in supermarkets, shops, restaurants, public places and beyond are actually dealing with something urgent? Surely f they were most of them wouldn't be in those social places in the first place.

Furthermore what is more frustrating than talking to someone and realising that they are fixated by their phone? You try and converse and they constantly glance at their gadget, or worse, much worse - answer a call in the midst of a conversation! Is this not the height of rudeness? It is effectively the same as conversing with someone but turning your back on them because somebody else spoke to you. It makes the blood boil!

Manners, social grace and etiquette may seem like the lost remnants of some ancient pre-cretaceous world to some. yet they are still important and ever will remain so. Good manners and etiquette are the niceties that underpin social interaction, oiling the way for us to be able to associate with relative strangers within some recognisably comfortable format. Take that way and we, particularly the British on feels, are at a loss.

The point is simply made. In front of you is a living breathing human being who deserves your attention. Potentially able to contact you is somebody else via a remote gadget. It is only civil to acknowledge the person before you ahead of the gadget beside you.

Finally, there are those that  would argue that the proliferation of social media in recent years has numbed us to the niceties of the real world. As a self confessed satisfied user of Twitter one would have to disagree. It brings pleasure and interest but it, nor any social media, nor any other form of mobile communication can or should take precedent over the 'real world' in format of us at any give time.

For those who wish to know the correct mobile etiquette, what greater authority can be called upon than Debrett's?!?  http://www.debretts.com/etiquette/communication/technology/mobile-manners.aspx