Mobile Phones am I being unreasonable?

Sook I have a mobile phone and I would lost without it however, I also find it rude when in company other mobile phone users keep `checking ` their phone to see if there are any messages .I cannot understand why there seems to be the need to `update` on facebook via the phone as to where they are and who with ????????
Is there anything more rude/ annoying, than when talking to someone when they keep looking at the phone.
Yesterday I travelled by train. I got on the train at Cardiff and just after I found a seat a woman a few seats away was talking on her phone. Now I dont know if any of you know the journey but she was still talking on her phone when were pulling out from Abergavenny !!! And what was the main topic of the conversation.. would her mother lend/ borrow ( she couldn't work out which it was) £1000. If she got off the phone she would have saved £s

I usually switch off the sound on my phone if I am in company - trouble is that I then forget to turn it on again and have managed to miss a few calls and texts as a result - but nothing that I couldn't catch up on. After all, what did we do before we had mobiles?

The younger generation are so used to mobiles that it seems irrelevant to them. You can imagine my face when I am sing with my lovely family, daughter, partner and two tiny babies, then look up to see both parents checking their phones/facebook updates whilst they are feeding their babies. They find it amusing that I am giving them withering looks! It's so ingrained in the culture now. I suppose it's like my grandmother when she noticed the TV had been left on whilst we were having our evening meal. She looked fit to burst!

I heard this kind of behaviour described, on a radio show, as "AP" - absent but present. I too find it appalling in company! But usually not with making a fuss about with family...

My DH has the phrase "I wish I was that important for people to text/phone me every couple of minutes" .

If you are in my company, at my dinner table, drinking the round I have just bought in the pub, etc., you have the courtesy to give me your attention – just as I give you mine. If you want to talk to one of your hundreds of virtual friends, bye, bye, off you go and do so. Apart from checking something important – a friend has lost the way to our meeting place, mum has lost the dog, the car has broken down – you opt for present company not absent and, quite possibly, non-existent friends.

absent YESSSS!

Oh dear sook that must have been a stressful meal. You are obviously worried about your DH and then things can get to you can't they.
With your own kids you can just say something can't you. But ILs a different matter.
I remember doing a training course with some men years ago. They had to use computers and there was no way to stop them getting access to their mail. So some of them were doing their emails instead of listening. grrrr

I don't own a mobile phone, as it's hopeless where I live (no signal) and just don't think about being in contact constantly. However, I do think it is very rude when people constantly check their phones when in company.

I have a mobile phone, but I absolutely HATE them! Mine is for the sole purpose of keeping in touch with our partially disabled daughter at home when we are away on holiday, just to make sure every day that she`s OK. But the rest of our family seem to think I`m a bit "odd" not to be using it all the time. The odd time I did take it into town with me, I got into a panic when it rang, so switched it off!

I think that under the circumstances described, she was being extremely rude!

I think nothing is more irritating than some stupid little tune rattling on and on whilst on the train and then the owner giving us a one sided conversation. It is totally thoughtless and downright rude. And as for restaurants........ DH and I visited a pub recently which had a large sign saying there'd be a fine for anyone using their mobile phone inside. It was absolute bliss and I wish more eating places would follow suit.

UANBU Sook mobiles drive me crackers. I have one which rings about twice a year and I have been known to text my sister but otherwise I carry it in case of emergency.
Overheard conversations are mostly banal and boring to anyone in earshot. Constantly checking to see if you have been texted surely suggests that one has an over-inflated opinion of your own importance.
I know someone who gives a running commentary on facebook, via her phone, every time she has a day/night out. Who cares ?

How on earth did we all manage without our mobiles?.
Certain members of my family cannot seem to exist without their's.

I admire your self control Sook - these mobile conversations/texts always seem much more important then present company which is quite insulting. I might accept "Excuse me I must take this call as I am a brain surgeon on call"...? I think the rot set in with cordless phones so that people no longer had to sit in a freezing cold hall - which had the added bonus that phone bills were lower.
PS Good luck with your DH's operation!

Apparently, it is even worse in the USA. I saw a video of a couple getting married and the bride was texting during the service!
When I was a teenager, I didn't know anybody who had a phone at home, but we managed to have a very full social life.
My mobile is kept purely for emergencies and I have never managed texting.
I think schools are quite right to forbid pupils to have mobile devices in the classroom although I can see why parents like to be able to keep tabs on their children outside lesson times.
I like the idea that when a phone rings in a theatre or concert hall, a spotlight should be shone on the owner.

Yes I feel people can be insulting in the way they use their phones too!
I remember answering the door to a friend and when I opened the door he was talking on his phone, not to me! After this I instituted a box by the door for him to put his phone in when he came to see me, in case it rang - and he did get trained and more civilised....
Lately I have been niggled by my daughter being on hers when I get to her house, I am working out what to do to show her that I am really upset sometimes by this. I may go back and sit in the car!

Yes I have a phone and it can be a mental lifeline, as I can speak to her free on it with a family arrangement, £5 a month - otherwise I don't use it much, but am glad of it in the car for emergencies. I resisted getting one for ages.

I do remember the first times I heard people on mobiles.
The very first time, it was a builder - on the top of a roof across the block, telling all and sundry his business! And in a pub with a group, only two of whom had phones then, they were both on them - so I commented that they were phoning each other to show off.....(yes, this is a while back, isn't it?)

And a time on a train, with a woman across the aisle talking to various people including husband - I was annoyed at first, then realised as she went on that she wasn't going where she had told her husband she was....she was going to stay with a friend...male?? no, female...pity she got off before I discovered any more....

I think I have a love/hate relationship with them.

I do 'need' my phone! I use it for texting, mainly, and wouldn't dream of using it while in company. It's usually on 'silent', within my reach. My family and close friends keep in touch with me this way. There have been times when they have had needed to contact me which wouldn't have been appropriate on the house phone and it's quicker and cheaper to text, too!

Sook - yes indeed they should make mobile phones bullet shaped - it would hurt less but be far more expeditious! Emergency use only works for me and then I've usually lost the damn thing anycase.

The saddest picture is of a young couple out having what should be a romantic meal together with each one texting etc or young dad with children in the playground and he pays them absolutely no attention because the phone is more important -people will/have lost the ability to hold a conversation with full length words and proper sentences.

Ban them as a hazard to civilization. D'you think that's a bit radical

I love that story about the man in the restaurant talking loudly on his mobile all the way through his meal while shovelling the food into his face without paying any attention to it. Not only did his discourtesy offend the chef, it also annoyed the other patrons. When the chap went to the loo – surprisingly not taking the phone with him – the chef nipped out of the kitchen and took it off the table. On the chap's return, he found his phone, neatly coated in batter and deep-fried, sitting on a plate with a wedge of lemon and a sprig of parsley. The other patrons applauded.

Something I find astonishing about mobile phone use is the confidential nature of some of these calls which are carried on in public at high volume (these phones have microphones in them you don't have to shout). I have heard social workers, health care workers, lawyers, accountants all sorts discussing what should be private matters not to mention the amount of sensitive relationship matters on trains, restaurants and bars. My husband says in a very loud voice so that they can hear 'Speak up I didn't catch the last bit, who has done what to whom!!!' They look at him strangely well we all do really but he has a point.

I recognise that mobile phones are an asset, and I do have one though I use it rarely, but I hate this constant use of mobile phones at every opportunity. The trouble is that they are not just phones anymore; they have all sorts of sophisticated uses. Both my children and their partners - and my son's children - seem to have them as an extension of their limbs. They all know that I forbid their use during meals at home, and how it frustrates them to have the thing going off and being unable to even take it out of their pocket! I hate to sit on the bus or tram and have some gormless giggly teenager shrieking into a mobile. I was talking to my daughter's neighbour recently, who is around my age. We were talking about knitting and she told me she was knitting thumbless gloves for her grandsons so that they could text and keep their hands warm! Bowing to the inevitable I suppose.

At the end of last year I went to my local farmers market 3 times in a row and each time the person serving on the bacon and sausage stall served myself and two other people whilst holding a telephone conversation on his mobile. The first time I gave him the benefit of the doubt thinking he may be talking to his boss (the farmer) although I have to admit the conversation didnt sound like it! The second time he was obviously not concentrating on me and gave me the incorrect change (to my advantage!) By the third time I was so incensed I left the stall and went home and e-mailed the farmer, telling him about the incorrect change. I didnt even get the courtesy of a reply to my e-mail so will be avoiding that market stall in the future.

My son has a habit of texting and reading texts when he is in anyone's company. I think its rude and I tell him so. I don't care if its what young people accept as normal today, rudeness is rudeness.

I have noticed my Grandson has his phone beside him on the dinner table at my daughter's house - but when he comes to ours I tell him no phones allowed at the dinner table and he manages quite well without it !